Engineers at the University of Illinois have come up with a major improvement in the production of fertilizer. Imagine being able to use solar energy and waste water to ammonia with at 10-fold improvement in energy efficiency. This could lead to on-demand on-site fertilizer production facilities.
the researchers have improved this concept and developed a new method that uses nitrate, one of the most common groundwater contaminants, to supply nitrogen and sunlight to electrify the reaction. The system produces nearly 100% ammonia with nearly zero hydrogen gas side reactions. The reaction needs no fossil fuels and produces no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases, and its use of solar power yields an unprecedented solar-to-fuel efficiency, or STF, of 11%, which is 10 times better than any other state-of-the-art system to produce ammonia (about 1% STF).
The new method hinges on a cobalt catalyst, which the researchers describe along with the new process in their paper, "Solar-Driven Electrochemical Synthesis of Ammonia using Nitrate with 11% Solar-to-Fuel Efficiency at Ambient Conditions."
No comments:
Post a Comment