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Presentation

Nitrogen Reduction Reaction at High Current-to-Ammonia Efficiency

Hoang-Long Du Alexandr Simonov Douglas MacFarlane

Apart from its use in the fertiliser and chemical industries, ammonia is currently attracting our community as a potential carbon-neutral fuel and as an energy carrier for worldwide transportation of renewable sources. To achieve this goal, replacements of the conventional hydrocarbon deposit-based technology for NH3 production require to be a green but inexpensive and scale-flexible technology, namely the only genuine electrochemical lithium-mediated nitrogen reduction reaction (Li-NRR). Reported by many research groups around the world, the process had so far been hampered by poor yield rates and efficiencies. At Monash University, we introduced a compact ionic assembly arranged in the electrode-electrolyte…

Presentation

Whither Aqueous Electro-reduction of Nitrogen to Ammonia?

Douglas MacFarlane

Electrochemical reduction of N 2 (NRR) is widely recognised as an alternative to the traditional Haber-Bosch production process for ammonia. The high-energy efficiency, low-cost variant of this process involves an aqueous electrolyte and there is now a substantial literature on this topic. However, though the challenges of NRR experiments have become better understood, the reported rates in these aqueous solution studies are often too low to be convincing that reduction of the highly unreactive N 2 molecule has actually been achieved. Unfortunately, there are many possible impurity sources that can interfere with robust measurements. In this presentation we will discuss…

Presentation

Progress and challenges in ammonia synthesis by electrochemical processes

Douglas MacFarlane

Efficient production of ammonia from renewable energy represents an important technology for future means of global transportation of renewable energy from remote land and marine areas where it can be generated inexpensively at massive scale. The direct electrochemical nitrogen reduction reaction (eNRR), coupled with the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), is an attractive approach to the generation of ammonia from renewables and this talk will overview the technology options in respect of this process. The eNRR as carried out in traditional solvents is of relatively low efficiency under ambient conditions compared to other energy storage mechanisms and this is currently limiting…

Presentation

High Efficiency Electrochemical Synthesis of Ammonia from Nitrogen at Ambient Temperature and Pressure

Greg Redden Fengling Zhou Luis Azofra Muataz Ali Mega Kar Alexandr Simonov Ciaran McDonnell Chenghua Sun Angeline Bartholomeusz Xinyi Zhang Douglas MacFarlane

Ammonia as well as being an important fertiliser is being increasingly considered as an easily transported carrier of hydrogen energy. However, the traditional Haber-Bosch process for the production of ammonia from atmospheric nitrogen and fossil fuels is a high temperature and pressure process that is energy intensive. Newer technology is being investigated to produce sustainable ammonia from green energy. An ambient temperature, electrochemical synthesis of ammonia is an attractive alternative approach, but has, to date, not been achieved at high efficiency. Researchers from Monash University have obtained faradaic efficiency as high as 60% using liquid salt electrolytes under ambient conditions,…