Wang Huize, Seemakurthi Ranga Rohit, Chen Gao-Feng, Strauss Volker, Savateev Oleksandr, Hai Guangtong, Ding Liangxin, López Núria, Wang Haihui, Antonietti Markus
Department of Colloid Chemistry, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Research Campus Golm, Potsdam, Germany.
Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ-CERCA), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST), Tarragona, Spain.
Nat Commun. 2023 Sep 13;14(1):5668. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-41441-0.
For decarbonization of ammonia production in industry, alternative methods by exploiting renewable energy sources have recently been explored. Nonetheless, they still lack yield and efficiency to be industrially relevant. Here, we demonstrate an advanced approach of nitrogen fixation to synthesize ammonia at ambient conditions via laser-induced multiphoton dissociation of lithium oxide. Lithium oxide is dissociated under non-equilibrium multiphoton absorption and high temperatures under focused infrared light, and the generated zero-valent metal spontaneously fixes nitrogen and forms a lithium nitride, which upon subsequent hydrolysis generates ammonia. The highest ammonia yield rate of 30.9 micromoles per second per square centimeter is achieved at 25 °C and 1.0 bar nitrogen. This is two orders of magnitude higher than state-of-the-art ammonia synthesis at ambient conditions. The focused infrared light here is produced by a commercial simple CO laser, serving as a demonstration of potentially solar pumped lasers for nitrogen fixation and other high excitation chemistry. We anticipate such laser-involved technology will bring unprecedented opportunities to realize not only local ammonia production but also other new chemistries .
为实现工业氨生产的脱碳，近来人们探索了利用可再生能源的替代方法。然而，这些方法在产量和效率方面仍不足以用于工业生产。在此，我们展示了一种先进的固氮方法，即在环境条件下通过激光诱导氧化锂的多光子解离来合成氨。氧化锂在聚焦红外光下的非平衡多光子吸收和高温作用下发生解离，生成的零价金属自发地固定氮并形成氮化锂，随后氮化锂水解生成氨。在25°C和1.0巴氮气条件下，实现了最高氨产率为每秒每平方厘米30.9微摩尔。这比环境条件下的现有氨合成技术高出两个数量级。此处的聚焦红外光是由商用简单CO激光器产生的，这展示了潜在的用于固氮和其他高激发化学过程的太阳能泵浦激光器。我们预计，这种涉及激光的技术不仅将为实现本地氨生产，还将为实现其他新化学过程带来前所未有的机遇。
