New path to ammonia.

• Autores: JR Minkel
• Localización: Scientific American, ISSN 0036-8733, Vol. 290, Nº. 4, 2004, págs. 34-34
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • For more than 70 years, synthesizing ammonia (NH3) has meant cooking nitrogen and hydrogen gases at high temperature and pressure over a solid iron catalyst, a procedure called the Haber-Bosch process. Now chemist Paul J. Chirik and his colleagues at Cornell University have taken a major step in producing ammonia, which is crucial for fertilizers and other myriad products, under milder conditions--namely, in solution. They used a soluble complex made of two bulky hydrocarbon rings projecting from a zirconium atom. If the rings are just bulky enough, a molecule of nitrogen gas (N2) will cuddle up and latch onto two zirconium complexes. The method won't replace the tried-and-true Haber-Bosch process, Chirik says, but it may open up faster synthesis of more complex nitrogen-containing molecules for dyes, rocket fuels and pharmaceuticals.