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Ammonia from beer and boron

19.09.2020

Employees at the University of Würzburg have learned how to convert atmospheric nitrogen into ammonium chloride using beer and a compound containing boron. Industrially significant ammonia can then be isolated from this salt.

Today, ammonia and its salts are used to produce vast quantities of fertilizers and synthetic compounds for other industries. It is most convenient to create this gas from nitrogen contained in the atmosphere, because its volume fraction in the air is more than 78%. Today, the Haber process is used for this - a direct combination of hydrogen and nitrogen using a special catalyst. However, this process is associated with heating to significant temperatures and the creation of high pressure.

German chemists have found a way to reduce the cost of producing this gas. Two years ago, this group of scientists came up with a method for the synthesis of ammonia, in which the role of a catalyst - a substance that accelerates a chemical reaction - is performed by a light organic molecule with boron atoms. But then the chemists managed to carry out only half of the reaction: nitrogen was restored, but ammonia had not yet been obtained.

In the new study, scientists first accidentally added water to the reaction mixture and it turned out that the reaction in the system moved one step closer to the target product. Then the scientists decided to test how stable the process is to the presence of impurities. They added local Wurzburger Hofbrau beer to the system instead of water. It turned out that in such a medium the reaction proceeds to the target product.

This shows that the process invented by the researchers is resistant to the action of other compounds in solution and unpretentious in terms of the reaction medium. Although scientists have already managed to obtain active forms of ammonium ions and carry out more than half of the process, they have yet to find a way to convert these forms into the final product - ammonia.

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