Ammonia supports the lives of 70% of the population as fertilizer, and its annual production reaches 1 million tons.However, hydrogen, which is a raw material, is obtained by burning fossil resources and accounts for 2% of total CO3 emissions.

　Therefore, a method of electrolyzing water by renewable energy power generation to obtain clean hydrogen without CO2 emission has been considered, but with conventional catalysts, it takes a high temperature of about 400 ° C to synthesize ammonia from hydrogen and nitrogen. You will need it.Since most of the renewable energy generated will be spent on ammonia production, there may be a shortage of electricity available for hydrogen production.

　Therefore, in this research, we worked on the development of a catalyst that synthesizes ammonia at low temperature, and focused on "calcium fluorinated hydride (CaFH)", which has the property of giving electrons even at low temperature. When we developed a composite catalyst of CaFH and ruthenium nanoparticles, we found that it synthesizes ammonia even at 50 ° C or lower and operates even at room temperature.Not only that, even the ammonia synthesis rate at 200 ° C is more than twice that of the highest performance catalysts currently in use, and the stability is that it continues to operate for 2 hours or more without a decrease in the ammonia synthesis rate even at reaction temperatures above 300 ° C. Was also confirmed.

　While the conventional catalyst did not operate at 100 ° C or lower even with any improvement, it operates at room temperature of 100 ° C or lower and produced a catalyst with performance superior to existing catalysts. The significance is great.It can be said that it has opened the way to the production of ammonia with zero CO2 emissions using natural energy, as well as the significant efficiency of ammonia production.

Paper information:[Nature communications] Solid solution for catalytic ammonia synthesis from nitrogen and hydrogen gases at 50 ℃