The preparation process of industrial Fe-based catalysts for ammonia synthesis involves energy-intense and sophisticated treatments. It is thus highly desirable to develop new catalysts with sufficient catalytic performance within smart and more economic approaches. Herein, γ-Al2O3-supported FeOOH nanosheets are employed for the first time as ammonia synthesis catalysts. To monitor the potential of these new materials, unsupported FeOOH and K-promoted catalysts are additionally investigated for comparison. While no activity is observed from the unsupported catalyst, the activity of γ-Al2O3-supported catalysts shows an inverse relationship with respect to the amount of Fe. Upon correlation of the catalytic performance with the final state of catalysts, the activity is closely related to the particle size of metallic Fe. Higher activity and lower apparent activation energy can be reached for smaller nanoparticles that are likely to contain more step–kink structures serving as active sites. The best catalytic performance is obtained for a K-promoted catalyst which shows an activity about 18 times higher compared to that of the corresponding unpromoted one (at 425 °C). We conclude that, in addition to the nanostructured character of the Fe, the modifications of its electronic and surface structures induced by the K-promoter are responsible for this enhanced activity.

This review article deals with the challenge to identify catalyst materials from literature studies for the ammonia decomposition reaction with potential for application in large-scale industrial processes. On the one hand, the requirements on the catalyst are quite demanding. Of central importance are the conditions for the primary reaction that have to be met by the catalyst. Likewise, the catalytic performance, i.e., an ideally quantitative conversion, and a high lifetime are critical as well as the consideration of requirements on the product properties in terms of pressure or by-products for potential follow-up processes, in this case synthesis gas applications. On the other hand, the evaluation of the multitude of literature studies poses difficulties due to significant varieties in catalytic testing protocols.

Magnesioferrite (MgFe2O4)‐derived Mesoporous spinels of the type MgFeM3+O4 with M3+=Fe, Al, and Ga obtained upon calcination of hydrotalcite‐like compounds were investigated in the ammonia decomposition reaction at 1 bar and the synthesis of ammonia at 90 bar. The corresponding precursors were synthesized by co‐precipitation at 50 °C and constant pH of 10.5. N2 physisorption, PXRD, HR‐TEM, H2‐TPR, and NH3‐TPD were applied in order to obtain information about the textural, (micro‐)structural, solid‐state kinetics in reducing atmosphere, and adsorption properties of the samples. While phase‐pure layered double hydroxides (LDHs) were obtained for Al and Ga, magnesioferrite as the desired oxide phase and a low fraction of magnetite were formed besides the targeted precursor phase during co‐precipitation in the presence of Fe2+ and Fe3+ species. Reduction of the binary and ternary magnesioferrites occurs via two consecutive reactions. Only the second stage is shifted towards higher temperatures after incorporation of Al and Ga. The latter element boosts the catalytic decomposition of ammonia, yielding a 2‐fold and 5‐fold higher conversion at 500 °C compared to the samples containing Fe3+ and Al3+ species, respectively. In situ XRD measurements showed that this unprecedented promotional effect is related to the generation of (Fe, Ga)Fe3N. This phase, however, is detrimental for the synthesis of ammonia at elevated pressures in which the binary system outperforms the ternary spinels, yielding 30 % of the activity obtained with a highly promoted Fe‐based industrial catalyst.

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The influence of oxygen poisoning on a state‐of‐the‐art multipromoted iron‐based industrial catalyst for ammonia synthesis as well as the effectivity of different gas purification methods to prevent oxygen poisoning for experiments on laboratory scale were studied in detail. Additionally, the observed results were compared to a common oxygen poisoning test from literature, which on the one hand confirmed its usability in a wide range of conditions, but on the other hand also demonstrated the limitations of this test.