Ammonia Synthesis under Ambient Conditions: Insights into Water-Nitrogen-Magnetite Interfaces

2025/04/15 by Chandy, Sruthy K., Luna, Mauricio Lopez, Rustad, Nykita Z. +6 · 1 citation
#Chemical Physics (physics.chem-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences

paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2504.11629

Abstract

New routes for transforming nitrogen into ammonia at ambient conditions would be a milestone toward an energy efficient and economically attractive production route in comparison to the traditional Haber-Bosch process. Recently, the synthesis of ammonia from water and nitrogen at room temperature and atmospheric pressure has been reported to be catalyzed by Fe3O4 at the air-water interface. By integrating ambient pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and ab initio molecular dynamics and free energy calculations, we investigate the underlying thermodynamic mechanisms governing ammonia and hydrazine formation at the water-Fe3O4-nanoparticle interface. We find that, unlike pure Fe3O4 where N2 can only interact with a limited number of Fe sites, hydroxylated species introduce large and diverse adsorption geometries where N2 can bind through either Fe sites or Fe-OH groups, each of which are capable of independently facilitating proton-coupled electron transfer.

Cited by

• Agentic AI for Multi-Stage Physics Experiments at a Large-Scale User Facility Particle Accelerator

Related

• Formation of highly stable interfacial nitrogen gas hydrate overlayers under ambient conditions
• Selectivity Control in the Nitrogen Reduction Reaction over Mo2C MXene by a Nitrogen-Rich Environment
• Bubble-Burst Synthesis of Ammonia, Amino Acids, and Urea Under Ambient, Catalyst-Free Conditions
• The Haber Process Made Efficient by Hydroxylated Graphene
• Theoretical design of nanocatalysts based on (Fe₂O₃)_n clusters for hydrogen production from ammonia