• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

“Nano Planet” Liquid Metal Catalysts Could Terminate A Major Source Of Carbon Emissions

September 21, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

When chemists had an idea for a better catalyst to make ammonia, they decided to try nine variations at the same time. That turned out to be just as well, because the version they expected to work didn’t – but one of the long-shot alternatives proved so successful the work could end up cutting carbon emissions equivalent to those of a medium-sized country.

Advertisement

Modern food production depends on ammonia-based fertilizers, without which billions would have starved long ago. However, the Haber-Bosch Process, the method developed over 100 years ago to produce ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen, is immensely energy-intensive, requiring high temperatures and pressures. Ammonia production is responsible for around 2 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. That might not sound like much until you realize it’s more than Germany’s – or indeed any country outside the top five – and not far off all air travel.

Naturally, finding a better way has been a top priority for chemists for decades, but even promising-looking solutions have so far not turned out to scale. When liquid metal catalysts started proving useful for other reactions around 2016, a team including senior author, RMIT University’s Professor Torben Daeneke, thought they’d take a shot at the biggest game in town.

Daeneke told IFLScience that they; “Started off with gallium because it has a low melting point and is non-toxic and safe to work with, making it a good replacement for mercury.” Gallium alone proved a poor catalyst for ammonia production, but the team had a hunch that doping it with a transition metal might work better.

The team expected iron to be their best chance, since it has already been shown to work as an ammonia catalyst, but tried nine other transition metals for comparison. Daeneke told IFLScience; “We decided to go cheap, avoiding metals like platinum.” That choice made any product easier to bring to market, and helped stretch the research grant a bit further.

The team had no reason to think copper would work, given its demonstrated lack of success as an ammonia catalyst, but included it for completion. To their surprise, the gallium-iron catalyst failed, but gallium-copper could be just what the world needs.

Advertisement

“Liquid metals allow us to move the chemical elements around in a more dynamic way that gets everything to the interface and enables more efficient reactions, ideal for catalysis,” Torben said in a statement. They also avoid becoming deactivated by side reactions. 

Daeneke explained to IFLScience that the products of side reactions stick to traditional catalysts and rapidly reduce their effectiveness, but with liquid versions; “They have nothing to grab onto.” However, Daeneke added it is now becoming clear that liquid metal catalysts are not just more powerful versions of their solid counterparts; they can also be quite different. This means that sometimes a liquid version will work even when a solid one does not.

When gallium and copper are ground in a handheld device and then exposed to sound waves at 400°C (750°F), tiny droplets form. The team calls these “nano planets” because, like Earth, they have a hard crust over a liquid outer core and solid inner core. When placed in a mix of hydrogen and nitrogen, the hydrogen initially removes the oxidized crust, producing a little water: then the ammonia formation starts. The copper breaks up the hydrogen molecules while the gallium splits the nitrogen, allowing the two to combine.

Even with this preparation, gallium-copper liquid catalysts are vastly cheaper and more environmentally friendly than the precious metal ruthenium, which is currently used. 

Advertisement

More importantly, the process uses 20 percent less heat, and 98 percent less pressure than the Haber-Bosch process, slashing the energy consumption and associated carbon emissions.

Daeneke told IFLScience the system should be easy to implement widely because it can be applied in existing ammonia-making facilities with little change. However, there is also potential for it to be used in much smaller reactors where the Haber-Bosch process is uneconomic. This could allow ammonia to be produced more locally. Australia, where Daeneke is based, recently had one of its major highways blown to smithereens when a tanker carrying ammonium nitrate crashed, so reducing the need for transport could improve safety, as well as saving money.

For all the dangers, ammonia is still easier to transport than hydrogen, and could be used as a storage mechanism for hydrogen produced in times and places where renewable energy is cheap. With the right process, demand could rise.

So important is finding a low-emissions path to ammonia production that chemists aren’t just taking inspiration from villainous robots in science fiction films. The same edition of the journal Nature Catalysis that this paper is published in also has one on using E. coli to achieve the same outcome.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Exclusive-China’s Miniso to double U.S. stores, add NY ‘flagship’ as pandemic slashes mall rents
  2. US stock futures lead Asia lower, dollar gains on yen
  3. A Weight-Loss Drug Has Been Approved For Obese Children 12 And Up
  4. Ancient Egyptian Scribes Had The Same Bad Posture As You

Source Link: "Nano Planet" Liquid Metal Catalysts Could Terminate A Major Source Of Carbon Emissions

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Comet 3I/ATLAS Reaches Perihelion Today – “Alien Spaceship” Hypothesis To Be Tested Once And For All
  • Search For Shackleton’s “Lost” Ship Uncovered 1,000 Dimples On The Antarctic Seafloor – What Are They?
  • Your Banana Smoothie Might Be Kind Of Self-Defeating, Health-Wise
  • What Are Those Zigzags You See In Spiders’ Webs? Study Finds They Could Be A Kind Of Alarm System
  • The Deepest Fish Ever Filmed Was Found 8,336 Meters Below The Surface In A Vast Ocean Trench
  • Supersonic Flight Without The Boom: NASA’s X-59 Experimental Aircraft Takes Flight For First Time
  • The Oldest Ice Ever Recovered Contains Antarctic Air Bubbles From 6 Million Years Ago
  • Freaky “Frankenstein” Worms Can Get Reproduction Wrong And End Up With Two Heads
  • Hedgehog, Lasagna, and Brussels Sprouts: Meet 2025’s Newly Named North Atlantic Right Whales
  • Can You Be Allergic To Other People? Yes, And It Sounds Like The Worst Thing Ever
  • Animals With “Urban Superpowers” Lurk In London’s Underground, And Some Of Them Want To Drink Your Blood
  • This Is The Largest Radio Color Image Of The Milky Way Ever Assembled – And It’s Gorgeous
  • Why We Can’t Stop Watching True Crime: The Psychological Pull And The Ethical Push
  • “Silent, Ongoing Genocide”: World’s 196 Uncontacted Tribes Are Facing Grave Threats To Their Survival
  • Golden Tigers Are Among The Rarest Big Cats In The World, But They Spell Bad News For Tigers
  • Rare 2-Million-Year-Old Infant Facial Fossils Expand What We Know About Prehistoric Human Children
  • First-Ever 3D Map Of Planet Outside Solar System Reveals Distant World’s Hot Spot And Cool Ring
  • From Chains To Forests: Working Elephants Set To Be Rehabilitated In The Wild Under New Project
  • Why Does Death Have Such A Distinctive Smell?
  • Blue Dogs Have Been Spotted In Chernobyl: What Is Going On?
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version