Green ammonia electrolysis breakthrough could finally kill Haber

Scientists at Australia's Monash University claim to have made a critical breakthrough in green ammonia production that could displace the extremely dirty Haber-Bosch process, with the potential to eliminate nearly two percent of global greenhouse emissions.

Ammonia is one of the most heavily-produced industrial chemicals in the world, and absolutely vital to modern society. Currently, the majority of ammonia is used as an agricultural fertilizer, but it's also used in plastics, fibers, explosives, pharmaceuticals and other areas.

The global ammonia industry pumps out upwards of 230 million tonnes of ammonia annually, and demand may be set to rise as the race to net zero emissions progresses; ammonia stores so much energy that it's being proposed as a high-density green fuel for hard-to-decarbonize sectors like shipping and aviation.

Virtually all the ammonia produced today is made using the Haber-Bosch cycle. Natural methane gas is used to produce hydrogen (releasing six tons of carbon dioxide for every 1.1 tons of hydrogen), then this hydrogen is reacted with atmospheric nitrogen to produce ammonia, typically burning more natural gas to provide the necessary heat and pressure for the reaction.

Not only does this result in an estimated 1.8 percent of global CO₂emissions, it's also responsible for nitrate pollution of ground water and puts vast amounts of dangerous nitrous oxide emissions into the atmosphere. Not to mention, it consumes between three to five percent of global natural gas production totals, and the gas extraction process itself spews methane emissions directly into the air, where it acts as an extremely potent greenhouse gas.

Long story short, Haber-Bosch has to be put to bed if we're to get to net zero emissions. And researchers at Monash University say they've more or less stumbled upon a way to remove natural gas from the equation altogether, while still producing ammonia "at room temperature, at high, practical rates and efficiency."

While working on a separate project attempting to make bleach out of salt water through electrolysis, Dr. Bryan Suryanto was working with Professor Doug MacFarlane, an expert on phosphonium salts, and decided to run some side experiments to see if these ionic liquids could be used to produce ammonia in an electrolytic process. To everyone's surprise, they could.

最新评论