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Energy consumption. I am pretty sure that the hydrogen utilization in most ammonia production is very high. In theory the energy required to produce ammonia is
by scythe 2y ago
Energy consumption. I am pretty sure that the hydrogen utilization in most ammonia production is very high.
In theory the energy required to produce ammonia is negative (Hf < 0) but at standard pressure its formation is thermodynamically unfavorable (Gf = Hf + TdeltaS > 0). But the bigger issue is the very high activation energy barrier for ammonia synthesis, which results in a lot of energy being used to make ammonia at very high pressure and temperature.
Right now there are two competing approaches to reducing the cost of ammonia production. Tsubame is using a new ruthenium-based catalyst that lowers the reaction temperature (and therefore, also the pressure). The other method is by electrocatalysis. I don't know for sure that this is what NitroVolt is doing but their name certainly suggests it.
- kragen 2y agoThank you! Presumably if you had some way of rapidly removing the ammonia produced from the reaction, like maybe a high-temperature highly polar solvent that reacted reversibly with the ammonia, but didn't dissolve much hydrogen or nitrogen, you could get by with a lower equilibrium amount of ammonia and thus much lower pressure. Anhydrous phosphoric acid seems like a potential candidate? But that's obvious enough that people probably tried it a century ago.