{"id":89913,"date":"2019-04-24T13:03:31","date_gmt":"2019-04-24T20:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/researchers-dramatically-clean-up-ammonia-production-and-cut-costs"},"modified":"2019-04-24T13:03:31","modified_gmt":"2019-04-24T20:03:31","slug":"researchers-dramatically-clean-up-ammonia-production-and-cut-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/researchers-dramatically-clean-up-ammonia-production-and-cut-costs","title":{"rendered":"Researchers dramatically clean up ammonia production and cut costs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/researchers-dramatically-clean-up-ammonia-production-and-cut-costs2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Ammonia\u2014a colorless gas essential for things like fertilizer\u2014can be made by a new process which is far cleaner, easier and cheaper than the current leading method. UTokyo researchers use readily available lab equipment, recyclable chemicals and a minimum of energy to produce ammonia. Their Samarium-Water Ammonia Production (SWAP) process promises to scale down ammonia production and improve access to ammonia fertilizer to farmers everywhere.<\/p>\n<p>In 1900, the <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/global+population\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">global population<\/a> was under 2 billion, whereas in 2019, it is over 7 billion. This <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/population+explosion\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">population explosion<\/a> was fueled in part by rapid advancements in food production, in particular the widespread use of ammonia-based fertilizers. The source of this ammonia was the Haber-Bosch <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/process\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">process<\/a>, and though some say it\u2019s one of the most significant achievements of all time, it comes with a heavy price.<\/p>\n<p>The Haber-Bosch process only converts 10 percent of its source material per cycle so needs to run multiple times to use it all up. One of these source materials is hydrogen (H<sub>2<\/sub>) produced using fossil fuels. This is chemically combined with nitrogen (N<sub>2<\/sub>) at temperatures of about 400\u2013600 degrees Celsius and pressures of about 100\u2013200 atmospheres, also at great energy cost. Professor Yoshiaki Nishibayashi and his team from the University of Tokyo\u2019s Department of Systems Innovation hope to improve the situation with their SWAP process.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2019-04-ammonia-production.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><\/p>\n<div style=\"clear:both;\">Read more<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ammonia\u2014a colorless gas essential for things like fertilizer\u2014can be made by a new process which is far cleaner, easier and cheaper than the current leading method. UTokyo researchers use readily available lab equipment, recyclable chemicals and a minimum of energy to produce ammonia. Their Samarium-Water Ammonia Production (SWAP) process promises to scale down ammonia production [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1497,1506],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy","category-food"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89913\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}