The National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center and Australia’s Curtin University have collaborated to invent a novel electrocatalyst capable of efficient ammonia extraction from wastewater.
The center said in a statement on Tuesday the research team created copper-cobalt-nitrogen film that overcomes the limitations of conventional nitrate reduction technology.
Ammonia is used for manufacturing fuel, fertilizers and other chemical products, and extracting the substance from waste nitrate offers a potential “green” source for the raw material, it said.
Photo courtesy of the NSRRC
However, electrochemical nitrate reduction using current methods is a slow, multistep process subject to competing side reactions, which impedes output quantity and reaction stability, the center said.
The new catalyst, which is a copper-nitrogen-cobalt (CuNCo 3) composite film, uses the three-dimensional electron exchange mechanism between copper and cobalt to stabilize cobalt’s catalytic binding sites, it said.
This increases production efficiency to 100 percent and significantly speeds up the process, the center said, adding that it simultaneously evens out the output and maintaining reaction stability over prolonged operations.
Coauthor of the study Lin Yan-gu (林彥谷) said that the research made use of Taiwan Photon Source and Japan-based SPring-8 accelerators to investigate the workings of catalysts in real time.
The use of these instruments allowed researchers to demonstrate that the new substance worked as intended and the principles of their operation, he said.
The program represents a breakthrough in industrial runoff processing and could reduce carbon emissions from chemical processes involved in fuel, energy and fertilizer production, the center said.
The research was published in the online version of Advanced Materials in February.
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