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Many familiar products are produced using factory-made chemicals. For example, personal care products and many vitamin supplements are produced from carbon-based chemicals using hydrogenation processes.
Production of agricultural fertilisers depends on nitrogen being extracted from the atmosphere (nitrogen fixation) to provide essential ingredients such as ammonia or nitrogen oxides.
These processes are essential precursors to making the final products. New processes, catalysts and continuous production modules from the MAPSYN project reduce the pollution associated with conventional processes and offer potential for better conversion rates and yields. These aren’t just good for the planet; they could save money for manufacturers, making Europe’s chemical industry – which employs 1.2 million workers according to the European Chemical Industry Council – more competitive in the face of global competition.
Over 3.5 years, MAPSYN produced two prototype systems which demonstrate that these processes can be scaled up for industrial applications. One uses a plasma-powered continuous flow reaction for converting nitrogen from air into ammonia and nitrogen oxides; the other is a continuous microwave hydrogenation system using novel micro-reactors and novel catalysts.
“Both processes have potential for significant energy savings over their lifecycles,” says project coordinator Rachel James of C-Tech Innovation, a UK research SME. Results from the demonstrators showed the processes could viably drive industrial chemical production. “We proved this could work – and it has progressed both technologies from lab to pilot scale.”
The systems are flexible enough to make hydrogenation and nitrogen fixation possible for small-scale production. Because they are driven by electricity, they can also allow remote areas or developing regions to use on-site generation from renewables such as solar or wind to power the process. This opens up the option for remote, small-scale production of fertilizers close to the point of use.
Innovative processes
This greener chemicals production is possible because the project’s methods use more efficient energy sources that intensify production and new, non-polluting catalysts.
The traditional Haber-Bosch and Ostwald processes, widely-used in commercial ammonia and nitric acid production, are responsible for a significant proportion of the greenhouse gas emissions from the chemicals industry. “The current approach for nitrogen fixation has a very high energy requirement,” says James.
MAPSYN’s nitrogen-fixation approach is a plasma-assisted process using novel reactor technologies developed in the project. This converts atmospheric nitrogen into useful chemicals using heat from plasma – the same state of matter as that found in lightening or the sun. Results suggest that plasma-assisted nitric acid synthesis emits much less CO2 than conventional production as ammonia is not required.
The MAPSYN catalytic hydrogenation system is an alternative to existing reliance on the Lindlar catalyst, which is based on toxic lead and rare, expensive palladium, and which only works in batch-based processing. The MAPSYN process incorporates an innovative continuous flow microwave system, novel micro-reactors and new catalysts. These new catalysts do not contain toxic metals such as lead, but can still provide high yields of the target products and are suitable for use in a continuous system.
The consortium was a mixture of industrials, SMEs focused on research, and research specialists who provided the core knowledge, says James. The former steered the project, showing what to target to solve real industrial problems, while the SMEs added specialist technology, says James.
She values this kind of collaborative project: “It allows us to access more expertise than in our own organisation. We can genuinely attack a multidisciplinary problem to take it to the stage of industrial demonstration.”
Details of the new processes are still confidential, while patent applications have been made for the new catalysts. It is too early to predict how many jobs or emissions savings will result from the technology, James adds. However, industry consortium partners are continuing to carry out extended trials of both processes.