题目：Electrochemical Ammonia Synthesis
报告人：IB Chorkendorff教授
单位：The Department of Physics, Technical University of Denmark
时间：2023/10/27（周五） 16:00
地点：海西院2#235会议室
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报告简介：
In the future we will have to extensively rely on sustainable energy that comes in the form of electricity, and we therefore must rethink our entire chemical production which today is based on fossil resources1. One of the most challenging processes is the activation of molecular nitrogen2, which is essential for life, as it constitutes a part of all amino acids and nucleic acid. Sustainable energy is produced de-centrally and ammonia is used de-centrally as fertilizer, therefore imagine if we could do like Nature and synthesize ammonia at ambient conditions. We have recently demonstrated that an electrochemical lithium mediated process can indeed activate Nitrogen and synthesize ammonia at ambient conditions3. We have subsequently followed up on this new insight and based on models improved the Faradaic efficiency by oscillating the potential, optimizing the Oxygen content in the Nitrogen gas, and by synthesizing high area electrodes4,5,6. Very recently we have designed a fuel cell type cell which is scalable, and which can operate continuously using hydrogen as the proton source with both Li or Ca7,8. This is the first step towards making this a viable de-centralized process, although outstanding questions concerning the energy efficiency will be discussed.
Ib Chorkendorff is Professor in Heterogeneous Catalysis at DTU-Physics. He earned his PhD in 1985 Odense University Denmark, and after a post-doc at University of Pittsburgh, USA, he was employed in 1987 at DTU where he became full professor in 1999. From 2005-2016 he was director of Danish National Research Foundation Center for Individual Nanoparticle Functionality (CINF) and from 2016 he has been director of The Villum Center for the Science of Sustainable Fuels and Chemicals (V-SUSTAIN). He has authored or coauthored more than 400 scientific papers, 23 patents and one textbook “Concepts of Modern Catalysis and Kinetics”. Professor Chorkendorff’s work is a surface science approach to heterogeneous catalysis including thermal, electro-, and photo-catalysis. He has since 2017 been listed as a Highly Cited Researcher (ISI) (top 1% in the field). Ib Chorkendorff’s research activities focus on finding new catalysts for improving sustainable energy production/conversion and for environmental protection. He is co-founder of three start-up companies RENCAT APS, HPNOW APS and Spectroinlets APS and has received numerous awards, latest the Villum Kann Rassmussen Annual Award (2021), which is the most prestigious award in Denmark and in 2022 The Eni Award: Energy Frontiers Prize.