An energy-efficiency lead for nitrogen fertilizer production
Friday, August 16, 2013 - 08:01
in Earth & Climate
Nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers are essential in modern agriculture and crucial to meeting the ever-growing global food demand. Nitrogen fertilizer, in the form of ammonia, is produced now in the same way that it has been for close to a century—by the energy-intensive Haber-Bosch process, which uses high temperatures and pressures to split nitrogen gas molecules. Takanori Shima, Zhaomin Hou and colleagues from the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science have now made a discovery that could allow ammonia and other nitrogen-bearing compounds to be produced energy-efficiently at room temperature.