Research project corresponding to the call 2024 and reference PID2024-162925OB-I00, for grants for «Proyectos de Generación de Conocimiento».

A transformative solution to the growing energy crisis and global warming relies on the massive exploitation of renewables, and the use of chemical energy storage to guarantee security and flexibility. A good candidate for achieving both goals is solar ammonia, which has recently emerged as one of the biggest premises of our time to help to confront two of the most pressing global challenges: food and energy security in the context of a low-carbon economy.

In this context, PHONON aims to go a step beyond the state-of-the-art in solar ammonia production technologies by exploring a scalable photothermocatalytic N₂ conversion route (nitrogen reduction reaction, NRR) based on affordable, non toxic and non-critical catalysts prepared by simple synthetic routes.

NRR is a newly and fast-growing approach for ammonia production at an early stage of development at laboratory scale. More significantly, photothermal NRR using plasmonic semiconductors is an almost unexplored research field with potential benefits for industrial scale production of solar ammonia. Based on the above, PHONON will go one step further by bridging basic and applied research (lab-scale and semi-pilot plant experiments, respectively) for a future solar NH3 industrial development. Interestingly, no previous solarization examples have been found in literature for photothermal ammonia production. Further, our proposal will fit a circular economy approach on the premises of more sustainable catalysts and renewable energy processes. Indeed, this project will investigate the production of solar ammonia using green hydrogen generated from bioethanol photoreforming. This challenging approach would target two ambitious objectives: (i) waste valorization (biomass waste or organic fraction of municipal solid waste), and (ii) development of an overall renewable technology for a circular energy transition.

In addition, this project will ultimately contribute to generate knowledge on key mechanistic aspects of the photothermal NRR. Great efforts will be made to perform in situ and operando surface analysis to understand the reactivity of photothermal catalysts, and the main reaction pathways and limiting steps. The current lack of in-situ/operando spectroscopic investigations in reported literature, due to the complexity of the simultaneous thermal and photonic activation controlling the reactivity of the catalytic systems, strongly reinforces the high-risk/high-gain character of this proposal.

Partners: IMDEA Energy Institute

Funding Institution/Program: Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities/AEI – FEDER-UE / Proyectos de Generación de Conocimiento 2024

Period: 01/09/2025 – 31/08/2028

IMDEA Energy Institute external funding: 172.500 €

IP IMDEA Energy: Dr. Laura Collado / Dr. Javier Fermoso (ICP-CSIC)