Ever wondered how the food on your plate reaches you? A major credit goes to a century-old process called the Haber-Bosch process.
It’s a chemical reaction that produces ammonia — one of the key ingredients in fertilizers. But this process comes with a hefty environmental cost, relying on fossil fuels and emitting greenhouse gases.
Researchers at the University at Buffalo have developed a new reactor that can produce ammonia directly from air and water — without releasing any greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Interestingly, the team drew inspiration from nature’s ammonia production, including lightning strikes.
The Haber-Bosch process is an industrial chemical reaction that combines hydrogen and nitrogen to produce ammonia. The process is energy-intensive, consuming roughly 2% of the world’s total energy supply.
The team designed this new rector, which is a plasma-electrochemical reactor. Remarkably, this new reactor can produce roughly 1 gram of ammonia per day for over 1,000 hours at room temperature. It turns thin air into valuable ammonia.
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