Making nitrogen cheaply
DEC 21, 2009
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.023941
ScienceNOW : Nitrogen atoms are needed to make many important chemicals from drugs to fertilizers.But getting those atoms into chemicals is challenging, because nitrogen molecules are tough nuts to crack.They consist of two atoms sharing a stubborn triple bond, which chemists can break up only by scorching them with temperatures of up to 500 °C. And that results in the simple chemical ammonia, which needs further processing to produce more complicated compounds.Now chemists have bypassed the energy-intensive reaction and devised a new one that splits molecular nitrogen at room temperature and synthesizes a common fertilizer.
© 2009 American Institute of Physics
