[New post] The new process aims to strip ammonia from wastewater
Conference Alerts posted: " A dash of ruthenium atoms on a mesh of copper nanowires could be one step toward a revolution in the global ammonia industry that also helps the environment. Collaborators at Rice University's George R. Brown School of Engineering, Arizona State Unive"
A dash of ruthenium atoms on a mesh of copper nanowires could be one step toward a revolution in the global ammonia industry that also helps the environment.
Collaborators at Rice University's George R. Brown School of Engineering, Arizona State University, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory developed the high-performance catalyst that can, with near 100% efficiency, pull ammonia and solid ammonia—aka fertilizer—from low levels of nitrates that are widespread in industrial wastewater and polluted groundwater.
A study led by Rice chemical and biomolecular engineer Haotian Wang shows the process converts nitrate levels of 2,000 parts per million into ammonia, followed by an efficient gas stripping process for ammonia product collection. The remaining nitrogen contents after these treatments can be brought down to "drinkable" levels as defined by the World Health Organization.
"We fulfilled a complete water denitrification process," said graduate student Feng-Yang Chen. "With further water treatment on other contaminants, we can potentially turn industrial wastewater back to drinking water."
Chen is one of three lead authors of the paper that appears in Nature Nanotechnology.
"When there is only ruthenium, the water gets in the way," Muhich said. "When there is only copper, there isn't enough water to provide hydrogen atoms. But on the single ruthenium sites, water doesn't compete as well, providing just enough hydrogen without taking up spots for nitrate to react."
The process works at room temperature and under ambient pressure, and at what the researchers called an "industrial-relevant" nitrate reduction current of 1 amp per square centimeter, the amount of electricity needed to maximize catalysis rate. That should make it easy to scale up, Chen said.
"I think this has big potential, but it's been ignored because it's been hard for previous studies to reach such a good current density while still maintaining good product selectivity, especially under low nitrate concentrations," he said. "But now we're demonstrating just that. I'm confident we'll have opportunities to push this process for industrial applications, especially because it doesn't require big infrastructure."
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