A new way of making ammonia, by harnessing the unique power of liquid metal, could lead to significant cuts in carbon emissions caused by production of the widely-used chemical.
Ammonia is used in fertilizer to grow much of our food, but also plays a role in clean energy as a carrier to safely transport hydrogen.
The global production of ammonia, however, comes at a high environmental cost: It consumes over 2% of global energy and produces up to 2% of global carbon emissions.
RMIT Research Fellow and lead author of a study on this topic, Dr. Karma Zuraiqi, said her team's greener alternative used 20% less heat and 98% less pressure than the century-old Haber-Bosch process used today for splitting nitrogen and hydrogen into ammonia.
The work appears in Nature Catalysis .
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