【Frontiers of HaiChuan Chemical Technology】Amazing! Scientists at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics have achieved the direct synthesis of ammonia from nitrogen and water under mild conditions
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According to a report on December 18, the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, announced today that a team led by researchers Deng Dehui, Huang Rui, and Yu Liang from the Center for Catalysis of Small Molecules in Energy and Environment (Group 509) at the National Key Laboratory of Energy Catalytic Conversion has made new progress in the field of ammonia synthesis. The team innovatively proposed a strategy that combines \"reaction coupling\" with \"bimolecular site coordination\", enabling the direct synthesis of ammonia from nitrogen and water under mild conditions of 100 to 320 °C, thus providing a new approach for the development of ammonia synthesis technologies with short processes and low energy consumption. Ammonia (NH3) is a key raw material in modern agriculture and chemical manufacturing. The traditional Haber-Bosch ammonia synthesis process relies on high-purity hydrogen as a raw material; its production is energy-intensive, and the subsequent purification steps are complex. If abundant water resources could be used directly as a hydrogen source to react with nitrogen in the atmosphere, it would be possible to shorten the process of ammonia synthesis at its source, thereby significantly reducing energy consumption and costs. However, this reaction faces two major challenges: first, the direct reaction between nitrogen and water is highly unfavorable from a thermodynamic perspective (ΔG >> 0), requiring extremely high energy to occur ； Secondly, the water molecules and oxygen-containing intermediates in the reaction system compete intensely for the active sites of the catalyst, inhibiting the adsorption and activation of nitrogen and thus hindering the reaction kinetics.
To address the aforementioned challenges, this work proposes a systematic solution. At the thermodynamic level, the team innovatively introduced carbon monoxide (CO) to modify thermodynamics; by leveraging its highly exothermic reaction with oxygen atoms in water, they transformed what were originally highly endothermic reactions into thermodynamically favorable ones, thereby bypassing the thermodynamic limitations associated with the reaction between nitrogen and water. At the kinetic level, the team designed and constructed an Au/α-MoC1-x bimodal catalyst, in which the molybdenum (Mo) sites at the interface are responsible for adsorbing and activating nitrogen (N2) and water (H2O) to produce ammonia, while the gold (Au) sites at the interface adsorb CO as an “oxygen acceptor” to remove residual oxygen. Together, these sites enable mutual promotion and a catalytic cycle involving multiple steps such as nitrogen activation, water splitting, hydrogenation, and oxygen removal. This strategy, which combines \"reaction coupling\" with \"bisdotal synergy,\" enables reactions that were previously unfeasible to proceed at a low temperature of 100 °C. At 320 °C, the ammonia production rate reaches 1396 μmol g-1h-1, and its performance is more than twice that of systems using hydrogen as the hydrogen source under the same conditions. This work not only confirms the feasibility of directly synthesizing ammonia from nitrogen and water under mild reaction conditions, but also provides a theoretical basis for developing other efficient catalytic hydrogenation processes that utilize water as a hydrogen source. The relevant research findings were published on December 2 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society under the title “Direct Ammonia Synthesis from Nitrogen and Water at Mild Conditions”. This work was supported by projects such as the **Key Research and Development Program**, the National Natural Science Foundation, the National Key Laboratory of Energy Catalytic Conversion at Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, and the Innovation Fund of Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics.
If it can be industrialized, it will be more energy-efficient. It is also the best practice for achieving carbon neutrality.
If this route is industrialized, it will represent a major breakthrough in ammonia synthesis; it is also worth considering whether it can be applied to other reactions as well.
Why is the IP of Lao Yu from Jiangsu? Is he here on a business trip to Jiangsu?
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