Overview of emerging catalytic materials for electrochemical green ammonia synthesis and process

The concept of“green-ammonia-zero-carbon emission”is an emerging research topic in the global community and many countries driving toward decarbonizing a diversity of applications dependent on fossil fuels.In light of this,electrochemical nitrogen reduction reaction(ENRR)received great attention at ambient conditions.The low efficiency(%)and ammonia(NH_(3))production rates are two major challenges in making a sustainable future.Besides,hydrogen evolution reaction is another crucial factor for realizing this NH_(3)synthesis to meet the large-scale commercial demand.Herein,the(i)importance of NH_(3)as an energy carrier for the next future,(ii)discussion with ENRR theory and the fundamental mechanism,(iii)device configuration and types of electrolytic systems for NH_(3)synthesis including key metrics,(iv)then moving into rising electrocatalysts for ENRR such as single-atom catalysts(SACs),MXenes,and metal–organic frameworks that were scientifically summarized,and(v)finally,the current technical contests and future perceptions are discussed.Hence,this review aims to give insightful direction and a fresh motivation toward ENRR and the development of advanced electrocatalysts in terms of cost,efficiency,and technologically large scale for the synthesis of green NH_(3).

The Role of Enthalpy of Reaction in the Process of Global Warming: What Can We Learn from Basic Thermodynamics*

An increase of carbon dioxide content accompanied by an increase of the temperature is observed in the atmosphere during the last 200 years. This behaviour can be explained by examination of correlations between tree generally accepted data sets of the recent past, world population, carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere, and rise of global temperature as function of time. No return to climate situations from hundred thousand of years before present is necessary. The world climate is a dynamic equilibrium between all energy generating processes on earth, especially sun energy, and the radiation of energy into space. Since approx. 200 years the dynamic equilibrium is changed additionally by means of fossil energy carriers, whose depots were put on in passed geological epochs, a climatic disturbance was produced. It is shown that the consumption of energy per year by the mankind can warm up the atmosphere by about one degree. This quantity cannot be neglected in climatic calculations;therefore it is the cause of mankind made warming of the atmosphere. The qualitative analyses presented here have shown that the use of so-called renewable energy sources does not necessarily lead to the avoidance of global warming. It can be expected that some techniques will have no or even small effect. Especially the model calculations to the operation of wind turbines and its influence on the temperature of the atmosphere show that it is difficult to estimate their influence and cannot be foreknown.

Sintering behavior of combusted iron powder in a packed bed reactor with nitrogen and hydrogen

Sintering behavior of micron-sized combusted iron powder is studied in a packed bed reactor,at various temperatures under inert(nitrogen)and reducing(hydrogen)conditions.Compression tests are subsequently used to quantify the degree of sintering.A sintering model,based on the formation of a solid bridge through solid state surface diffusion of iron atoms,matches the experimental results.Sintering of combusted iron occurs at temperatures≥575°C in both nitrogen and hydrogen atmospheres and increases exponentially with temperature.The observed decrease in reduction rate at high temperatures is not caused by the sintering process but by the formation of wüstite as an intermediate species,leading to the formation of a dense iron layer.Iron whiskers form at high temperatures(≥700°C)in combination with low reduction rates(≤25 vol%H2),leading to the production of sub-micron fines.

Chemical looping based ammonia production--A promising pathway for production of the noncarbon fuel

Ammonia, primarily made with Haber-Bosch process developed in 1909 and winning two Nobel prizes, is a promising noncarbon fuel for preventing global warming of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. However,the undesired characteristics of the process, including high carbon footprint, necessitate alternative ammonia synthesis methods, and among them is chemical looping ammonia production(CLAP) that uses nitrogen carrier materials and operates at atmospheric pressure with high product selectivity and energy efficiency. To date, neither a systematic review nor a perspective in nitrogen carriers and CLAP has been reported in the critical area. Thus, this work not only assesses the previous results of CLAP but also provides perspectives towards the future of CLAP. It classifies, characterizes, and holistically analyzes the fundamentally different CLAP pathways and discusses the ways of further improving the CLAP performance with the assistance of plasma technology and artificial intelligence(AI).

Electrical transport and current properties of rare-earth dysprosium Schottky electrode on p-type GaN at various annealing temperatures

The electrical and current transport properties of rapidly annealed Dy/p-GaN SBD are probed by I-V and C-V techniques. The estimated barrier heights（BH） of as-deposited and 200 ℃ annealed SBDs are 0.80 eV（I-V）/0.93 eV（C-V） and 0.87 eV（I-V）/1.03 eV（C-V）. However, the BH rises to 0.99 eV（I-V）/1.18 eV（C-V）and then slightly deceases to 0.92 eV（I-V）/1.03 eV（C-V） after annealing at 300 ℃ and 400 ℃. The utmost BH is attained after annealing at 300 ℃ and thus the optimum annealing for SBD is 300 ℃. By applying Cheung＇s functions, the series resistance of the SBD is estimated. The BHs estimated by I-V, Cheung＇s and ΨS-V plot are closely matched; hence the techniques used here are consistency and validity. The interface state density of the as-deposited and annealed contacts are calculated and we found that the NSS decreases up to 300 ℃ annealing and then slightly increases after annealing at 400 ℃. Analysis indicates that ohmic and space charge limited conduction mechanisms are found at low and higher voltages in forward-bias irrespective of annealing temperatures. Our experimental results demonstrate that the Poole-Frenkel emission is leading under the reverse bias of Dy/p-GaN SBD at all annealing temperatures.