Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Research Highlight
  • Published:

AMMONIA SYNTHESIS

Electrifying the Haber–Bosch

Nature Catalysis volume 2, page 1055 (2019)Cite this article

Subjects

Access through your institution
Buy or subscribe

Joule https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2019.10.006 (2019)

Now, Vasileios Kyriakou and colleagues have designed a protonic ceramic membrane reactor that consists of Ni-BaZr0.7Ce0.2Y0.1O3–x and VN-Fe porous electrodes, respectively as the anode and cathode, separated by a BaZr0.8Ce0.1Y0.1O3–x solid electrolyte membrane. The reactor operates at ambient pressure and temperatures between 550 and 650 °C. In the anode compartment the CH4 + H2O reactant mixture is converted to CO2 and H+. The latter is transported to the cathode compartment through the membrane, where it reacts with lattice nitrogen from the cathode to form NH3 via a Mars–van Krevelen mechanism — nitrogen vacancies are healed with N2 gas. The researchers achieve a maximum ammonia rate of 68 mmolNH3 h–1 m–2 at 0.63 V and 600 °C, with a Faradaic efficiency to ammonia of 5.5%. Higher Faradaic efficiencies up to 14% are obtained at lower currents, at the expense of lower NH3 rates.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Access through your institution

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nature Catalysis https://www.nature.com/natcatal

    Marcal Capdevila-Cortada

Authors
  1. Marcal Capdevila-Cortada
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marcal Capdevila-Cortada.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Capdevila-Cortada, M. Electrifying the Haber–Bosch. Nat Catal 2, 1055 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41929-019-0414-4

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41929-019-0414-4

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing