About the research

Atmonia ehf is developing a sustainable method for ammonia production for fertilizer, using electrocatalysis. The method used today is energy demanding and polluting. The proposed project will work on marketing and operational strategies for Atmonia ehf, and simultaneously continue with development of the most promising catalysts. Collaboration between specialists in material physics, analytical-, electro- and computational-chemistry has opened up the possibility for a combined optimisation of surface structures and electrochemical conditions to systematically design a reactor for this process.

We build on the results from calculations of Prof. Egill Skúlason and his group, which have predicted that four metal nitrides (VN, ZrN, NbN and CrN) are catalytically active, efficient and stable for this process. One catalyst, VN, will be optimized to achieve the highest possible reaction rate, efficiency and stability. The results will be used for process scale up in a second phase.

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