Proceedings of MATSUS Spring 2025 Conference (MATSUSSpring25)
Publication date: 16th December 2024
The Haber-Bosch process has been the standard for ammonia production since its invention. However, the process is highly energy-intensive, requiring high temperatures and pressures, which leads to significant CO2 emissions and rendering it unsustainable.[1] A potential alternative for ammonia synthesis is the electrochemical reduction of nitrogen (eNRR), which can theoretically operate at lower temperatures and pressures.[2] Nevertheless, the main challenge is the activation of the stable nitrogen for which the development of novel reactor design and electrolyte optimization are needed. Our research aims to address these challenges by employing a temperature-controlled zero-gap electrolyzer that allows the combination of gaseous nitrogen and hydrogen at the membrane-electrode assembly (MEA), where the reduction of nitrogen to NH3 takes place. The employed reactor is capable of operating at temperature ranges of up to 200° C. Our research focuses on identifying key operating parameters (temperature, gas humidification, flow rates, and current density) that are crucial for enhancing the efficiency of eNRR. We investigated the influence of these factors using both a metal catalyst (Ru) and a non-metal catalyst, specifically a nitrogen-doped carbon catalyst (C2N), and reported their impact under various conditions. While Ru was found to be inactive, the C2N catalyst showed activity for nitrogen reduction. No ammonia was detected under Argon-controlled and open-circuit potential experiments. However, by employing alkaline conditions at the anode and gaseous nitrogen at the cathode, a yield of 25.9 μg mgcat−1.h−1 with a Faradaic efficiency (FE) of 0.24% was achieved. Our findings indicate that ammonia is being produced, but the lower FEs suggest that the system needs improvement in terms of suppressing the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) to achieve higher efficiency.
This project is funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) with GZ: SI 3039/1-1.
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