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posted by cmn32480 on Friday June 16 2017, @01:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the don't-open-next-to-a-bleach-plant dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Our society is in need of ammonia more than ever.

Chemical fertilizers, plastic, fibers, pharmaceuticals, refrigerants in heat pumps, and even explosives all use ammonia as raw material. Moreover, ammonia has been suggested as a hydrogen carrier recently because of its high hydrogen content.

In the Haber-Bosch process, which is the main method of ammonia synthesis, nitrogen reacts with hydrogen using a metal catalyst to produce ammonia. However, this industrial process is conducted at 200 atm and high reaction temperatures of nearly 500°C. Additionally, ammonia production requires using much natural gas, so scientists have been looking for alternative methods to sustainably synthesize ammonia at low temperature.

In a recent study, researchers from Waseda University and Nippon Shokubai Co. Ltd. achieved a highly efficient ammonia synthesis at low temperature, with the highest yield ever reported.

"By applying an electric field to the catalyst used in our experiment, we accomplished an efficient, small-scale process for ammonia synthesis under very mild conditions," says Professor Yasushi Sekine of Waseda University. "Using this new method, we can collect highly pure ammonia as compressed liquid and open doors to developing on-demand ammonia production plants that run on renewable energy."

[...] The new technique also addresses obstacles in conventional ammonia synthesis, such as hydrogen poisoning of Ru catalysts and delay in nitrogen dissociation. Furthermore, the research results suggest that smaller-scale, more dispersed ammonia production could be realized, and building highly-efficient ammonia plants that run on renewable energy will become possible. Such ammonia plants are expected to produce 10 to 100 tons of ammonia per day. Professor Sekine believes that their findings will be important for future energy and material sources.

DOI: 10.1039/c7sc00840f

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 16 2017, @02:18PM (2 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 16 2017, @02:18PM (#526429) Journal
    Aside from burning for energy, nitrogen-fixing is the biggest use of fossil fuels by mass. We'll see if this comes to fruit, but if it does, it makes the end of widespread fossil fuel use more likely.
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by richtopia on Friday June 16 2017, @03:28PM (1 child)

      by richtopia (3160) on Friday June 16 2017, @03:28PM (#526466) Homepage Journal

      Ammonia production is huge, and I doubt that this method will make a dent in current production. My biggest concern is the catalyst, 9.9 wt% Cs/5.0 wt% Ru/SrZrO3. This catalyst is quite exotic, to the point where I cannot guess if it is cheaper than a comparable Pt catalyst.

      However, ammonia has many diverse applications. American factory farms already have infrastructure in place to turn natural gas into fertilizer, so that won't change anytime soon. But on-site production in exotic locations could perhaps provide a venue for this discovery. I've also read about an ammonia based energy economy, as you can fuel vehicles with ammonia. Probably more dangerous than hydrogen thanks to ammonia's toxicity, there are some niche applications where the ammonia economy could exist, with the most studied being military. With solar panels you can turn air and water into ammonia and be completely off-grid.

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by frojack on Friday June 16 2017, @05:39PM

        by frojack (1554) on Friday June 16 2017, @05:39PM (#526521) Journal

        Let me see if I understand you:

        You don't understand the catalyst, so...
        You think it might be expensive, so never mind the efficiency.
        The old method is entrenched on farms, and farmers never adopt new tech.
        It might get used in some rare cases but everybody else will continue using the old expensive method.
        But all it takes is solar panels air and water to make ammonia.

        WTF???

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @02:42PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @02:42PM (#526443)

    The only hope for protecting the world from the supposed dramatic climate change will be profitable improvements in technologies, not socio-political masochism in the short term.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @04:00PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @04:00PM (#526483)

      Troll? Really?

      My $.02 is that population control (primarily through more education, worldwide) could also play a big role. But that's not going to be pushed with DeVoss in control of education

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 16 2017, @04:15PM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 16 2017, @04:15PM (#526490) Journal

        But that's not going to be pushed with DeVoss in control of education

        So the point of a US Secretary of Education is to tell the world what to think? I guess she's slacking on the job, because I didn't know that.

      • (Score: 1) by arcz on Friday June 16 2017, @04:52PM

        by arcz (4501) on Friday June 16 2017, @04:52PM (#526507) Journal

        Some people misuse the "troll" mod when they should be using the "disagree" mod. I gave you my +1 to help remedy that moderation abuse.

  • (Score: 2) by KGIII on Friday June 16 2017, @04:15PM (2 children)

    by KGIII (5261) on Friday June 16 2017, @04:15PM (#526491) Journal

    Fritz Haber was the dude that helped implement gas attacks in WWI. He even went and oversaw it. He was Jewish - which is of interest, and not meant to be derogatory. (Jews have some awesome food - I will absolutely go to a high holiday, if invited.)

    Anyhow, he'd invent a product called Zyklon-A, which was a pesticide. That led to the invention of Zyklon-B which, as you probably know, was used to kill people during WWII. Many of those people were Jewish, though I'm not sure he shares much blame.

    His wife would kill herself and some speculate it was because of his involvement in WWI and the use of gas. He took a whole lot of shit for helping the Kaiser gas people. He pretty much shrugged it off and said something like, "Death is death." If I recall correctly, he did not specifically work on Zyklon-B but had mentioned the potential use of such, as means of warfare - not specifically for gassing people in camps, in his journal. Even after this, he was still fairly respected in the scientific community but the general public really, really didn't seem to like the fella.

    My memory is a bit fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure he didn't have anything to do, directly, with Zyklon-B. It's been a while since I was an academic. Also, I've smoked a whole lot of pot since thing.

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Friday June 16 2017, @05:46PM (1 child)

      by frojack (1554) on Friday June 16 2017, @05:46PM (#526527) Journal

      Fritz Haber was the dude that helped implement gas attacks in WWI. He even went and oversaw it.

      I see where you were going on that line of reasoning.

      Hans Reiser invented a rather efficient file system, but then he killed his wife, so we can't use that file system anymore.
      This new ammonia method will be adopted quickly and used world wide, just to get free of Faber.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 2) by KGIII on Friday June 16 2017, @08:13PM

        by KGIII (5261) on Friday June 16 2017, @08:13PM (#526597) Journal

        LOL No, just some history for you. If you decline to use tech from those who are associated with atrocities then you're gonna have a pretty boring life. It's just some history, nothing more. Judge 'em as you want, I don't have a nickel invested.

        --
        "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  • (Score: 2) by t-3 on Friday June 16 2017, @08:03PM

    by t-3 (4907) on Friday June 16 2017, @08:03PM (#526592)

    There have been several ammonia-making processes covered here relatively recently, how does this one compare? https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=14/08/11/160238 [soylentnews.org] https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=17/02/13/0213222 [soylentnews.org] https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=16/08/31/021207 [soylentnews.org]

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 17 2017, @02:54AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 17 2017, @02:54AM (#526772)

    Pee!

    • (Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday June 17 2017, @01:13PM

      by Bot (3902) on Saturday June 17 2017, @01:13PM (#526950) Journal

      random factoids gotten from the web
      - body expels excess nitrogen using pee
      - urea can be broken down into ammonia by bacteria
      - nitrogen, ammonia good for fertilizing
      - we dump the urea into the sea and use synthetic fertilizers instead (synthesis shits fluoride, which gets repurposed as dental aid instead of being considered waste)

        meatbags gonna meatbag

      or did I misinterpret something?

      --
      Account abandoned.
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