MIT Uses AI to Challenge a Century-Old Process for Mass Ammonia Production
Another Tanker Struck as Hormuz Shipping Crisis Deepens Alex Kimani is a veteran finance writer, investor, engineer and researcher for Safehaven.com.
Ammonia production consumes as much as 2% of the world's energy and generates roughly 1.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, largely because the industry still relies on a century-old process powered by fossil fuels.
Roughly 80% of the 200 million metric tons of ammoniaproduced globallyevery year goes into nitrogen fertilizers, with the rest used in plastics, textiles, explosives and other industrial chemicals.Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have nowdeveloped a new methodthat uses AI and quantum-mechanical calculations to identify the catalyst combinations most likely to cut the energy required to produce ammonia electrochemically.
Instead of synthesizing and testing thousands of alloys one by one, the researchers can use AI to predict which combinations are most likely to lower the energy needed to make ammonia.
Electrochemical ammonia synthesis has been studied for decades as an alternative to thetraditional Haber-Bosch process.
Electrochemical synthesis replaces the fossil-fuel-derived hydrogen and extreme temperatures and pressures used by Haber-Bosch with electricity, water and nitrogen.
If that electricity comes from low-carbon sources, ammonia can be produced without natural gas or coal as a feedstock.
Electrochemical ammonia production remains too slow and inefficient to compete with Haber-Bosch at industrial scale, with much of the difficulty caused by nitrogen.
The two atoms in a nitrogen molecule are held together by an extremely strong triple bond that requires high levels of energy to break before the nitrogen can react to form ammonia, according to the researchers.
Related: Natural Gas, Not Oil, Is Key Inflation Concern in Europe MIT is focusing on metal nitride catalysts because their own nitrogen can participate in ammonia production, reducing some of the energy needed to break apart nitrogen molecules from the air.
Finding the right material is yet another complication.
There are potentially millions of alloy combinations, making it impractical to manufacture and test each one.
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