Ammonia capture materials: 19459000
Ammonia is a chemical with many uses. Most of them are used in the food industry. Most of these uses are essential for certain processes.
This study examines different ways to capture ammonia.
Ammonia is used to make food.
Ammonia gas has an odor similar to urine. It is colorless and weighs about half as much as air. Ammonia is used in many products, such as dyes, synthetic fibers, plastics (including plastic bags), pharmaceuticals, and explosives.
Its applications in the food industry are numerous. It is used for food safety and sparked controversy when it was sprayed on beef to prevent contamination by salmonella or E.coli.
In baked goods it is used as a leavening ingredient. Control of acidity in chocolate and cheese.
The Haber Bosch process also made it possible to produce fertilizers in large quantities, making it a key element in feeding the world.
Ammonia capture
Composting and other agricultural practices also emit ammonia. It can be captured and used more strictly.
This study investigated the most effective ways to capture it. Traditional methods are physical condensation which uses a difference in boiling points to separate ammonia while leaving other gases in the gaseous compound. Water or acid scrubbers use different solubilities of liquid solvents to separate the gases. Water scrubbing can cause secondary pollution and acid is difficult to use.
Haber Bosch process
Fritz Haber, a German physicist and chemist, developed the Haber Bosch process. Carl Bosch improved the process to synthesize ammonia directly from nitrogen and hydrogen.
Haber Bosch's process allowed for the production of fertilizers on a large scale. This made it possible to feed exponentially more people, and thus increase the world's population. The innovation was rewarded by Haber and Bosch with Nobel Prizes (although Haber received controversy for his involvement in the creation of poison gas during World War I).
Researchers have studied materials to capture ammonia and found they could be environmentally friendly.
Ionic liquids are a type of material composed of liquids containing ions or electrically charged atoms and groups of atoms. These liquids are advantageous because they have low volatility, excellent solubility in gases, and high stability. They can also be tailored to the needs of the application.
Solid absorbents with pores are useful for capturing ammonia. These solids have pores that act as transport channels for ammonia. This material can be used to prevent corrosion that could occur during acid washes. These materials come in four different types with different absorption capacity.
They have the same advantages as porous liquids, with all the flexibility of the fluid. These liquids contain stable cavities that act as gas transport pathways. The study suggests that porous liquids for ammonia absorption have not yet been developed.
Finally, membranes can be used to directly recover gaseous ammonia. Research on ammonia is still limited, compared to CO2.
The researchers plan to apply artificial intelligence in the future to predict how well each material will absorb ammonia.
Nano-Micro Letters
“Advanced materials for NH3 capture: interaction sites and transport pathways”
Published on: June 26, 2024
Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40820-024-01425-1
Authors: H. Jiang, Z. Wang, X. Sun, S. Zeng, Y. Guo, L. Bai, M. Yao and X. Zhang
English 
French