Chemical engineering professors are also laying novel benchmarks for simulating the performance of new catalysts ยท A pioneering strategy aims to forecast a similar volume of fresh catalysts, paving the way against climate change and food security.
Tackling Energy Demands and Environmental Concerns
The world we live in today has a surging demand for energy, and going green is much more of a priority than it ever was before. This is why chemical engineering faculty Drs. The latter has provided a set of catalysts and tasked Joseph Kwon and Mark Barteau with coming up with an approach to predict how well each one will work in the production of greener ammonia.
In an attempt to make this planet healthier for the next generation, they published their work in a research paper entitled ‘Sustainable catalysis technology for reduction of the global carbon footprint’ in Applied Catalysis B: Environment and Energy. Through more sustainable industrial processes like ammonia production, they hope to shrink the energy and carbon footprints of established methods for ammonia production.
Revolutionizing Ammonia Production
The production of fertilizers, that are essential in maintaining global food security, relies on ammonia. But the way we currently make ammonia, a process optimized by Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch in 1913 that has been called the most important invention of the last century (and which won Haber one of those little statuettes in 1920), is an energy-guzzling, planet-clobbering disaster. This study suggests that 1% to 2% of global energy consumption and man-made greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are related to ammonia production as a fertilizer.
Drs. Barteau and Kwon are pursuing a less environmentally damaging alternative to the Haber-Bosch process. They focus on NRR (nitrogen reduction reaction), i. e. electrocatalysts for the electrochemical reduction of nitrogen by hydrogen atoms in water. The aim is to get a better handle on how nitrogen and hydrogen interact with the surface of the catalyst, in order to generate ammonia more effectively at lower temperatures and pressures; this would result in a significant energy saving/carbon emission reduction.
Conclusion
Research by Drs. This advancement from Kwon and Barteau could change the way ammonia is produced, leading to a more sustainable world. With the aid of cutting edge game-changing catalysts and sophisticated computational tactics, these new strategies for fertilizer production will revolutionize the future of agricultural practices: not only they will restore the planet but increase global food security. Applying methods developed within this framework speeds up the discovery of mechanistically viable catalysts and establishes a nuanced view of how they function on practical terrains, paving the way for empirical validation and eventual industrial deployment.
