NewScientist (19 May 2018) reports on a potential key upgrade in the process of the creation of fertilizer:
FEEDING billions of people around the globe takes a lot of energy, and much of it goes into making ammonia, the key ingredient in many fertilisers. To do this, we rely on the Haber-Bosch process, invented a century ago by German chemists Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch. No one has yet come up with anything that can compete with it on a large scale – until now.
Xiaofeng Feng and his colleagues at the University of Central Florida in Orlando have created a process that uses water, nitrogen from the air, electricity and a catalyst to help turn the ingredients into ammonia. It works at room temperature and regular pressure.
The current technology used for this step involves temperatures of 500°C and high pressures, which in turn implies consumption of large amounts of energy. If this discovery can be scaled up, it’ll certainly make it easier to support increases in population.
