A novel energy efficient path for nitrogen fixation using a non-thermal arc

Abstract

The studied process offers high NO selectivity with low energy consumption, which is much lower than the previously reported value of plasma-assisted atmospheric nitrogen fixation and is close to that of the Haber–Bosch process.

Sustainable NOx production from air in pulsed plasma: elucidating the chemistry behind the low energy consumption

“…The best values reported for atmosphericpressure plasmas apply to gliding arc reactors (2.4-3.6 MJ (mol N) −1 ). 14,15,19,36,37,39 and recently, record values of 2 MJ (mol N) −1 have been reported by Kelly and Bogaerts in an atmospheric pressure MW plasma. 34 A number of literature reports discuss the underlying chemical mechanisms, either purely experimental 26 or supported by modelling.…”

Toward Reducing the Energy Cost of NOx Formation in a Spark Discharge Reactor through Pinpointing Its Mechanism

“…Obviously, most previous works have focused on strategies to improve the favorable reaction pathways and reduce the chemical loss processes; therefore, the main suggestions to improve the efficiency are focused on optimizing the O 2 content, reducing the gas temperature, applying short pulses, and extending the discharge length. 32 In contrast, a few studies have focused on the loss pathways of the deposited energy and enhancing the energy usage in the reactor, 40 which has a strong influence on the energy efficiency. Therefore, major efforts are still required for plasma technology to become commercially attractive for nitrogen fixation.…”

An atmospheric pressure glow discharge in air stabilized by a magnetic field and its application on nitrogen fixation

“…[2,3] Nonthermal plasma technology is an emerging method for gas catalytic conversion, including carbon dioxide dissociation, dry reform of methane, ammonia synthesis, nitrogen fixation, and so on. [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] Plasma nitrogen fixation is helpful to deal with the fossil energy crisis and global warming, and its theoretical low limit of the energy consumption is ~0.2 MJ mol −1 , [19,20] which is more than 2.5 times lower than that of the H-B process. In addition, it is able to be quickly activated (within the order of ~1 s) to adapt the intermittent characteristics of renewable electricity and allows small-scale, decentralized production to avoid the additional carbon emissions during fertilizer transportation.…”

“…Therefore, atmospheric pressure plasma has better application prospects in gas catalytic conversion but the energy cost needs to be further reduced to about 0.7 MJ mol −1 to be a highly competitive alternative. [23] So far, a variety of atmospheric pressure plasma sources, such as gliding arc (GA) discharge, [15,16,[24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] microwave (MW) discharge, [33,34] dielectric barrier discharge (DBD), [36,37] spark discharge, [38] glow discharge, [38,39] and so on, have been developed and used in gas catalytic conversion. In addition, the nitrogen fixation effect and energy cost of these plasma sources have also been evaluating by many researchers.…”