Ammonia is the most widely produced chemical in the world today, used primarily as a source for nitrogen fertilizer.
Ammonia is the most widely produced chemical in the world today, used primarily as a source for nitrogen fertilizer. Its production is also a major source of greenhouse gas emissions — the highest in the whole chemical industry.
Now, a team of researchers at MIT has developed an innovative way of making ammonia without the usual fossil-fuel-powered chemical plants that require high heat and pressure. Instead, they have found a way to use the Earth itself as a geochemical reactor, producing ammonia underground. The processes uses Earth’s naturally occurring heat and pressure, provided free of charge and free of emissions, as well as the reactivity of minerals already present in the ground.
The trick the team devised is to inject water underground, into an area of iron-rich subsurface rock. The water carries with it a source of nitrogen and particles of a metal catalyst, allowing the water to react with the iron to generate clean hydrogen, which in turn reacts with the nitrogen to make ammonia. A second well is then used to pump that ammonia up to the surface.
Read More: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
