Project Overview

Ammonia is not only used to produce several raw materials but is also a fertilizer, therefore, its clean, sustainable and reliable production is crucial for the survival of the ever-growing human population. Conventional dinitrogen reduction to ammonia is an energetically expensive and polluting process, and ammonia production under mild conditions is a challenge to this day. By utilizing the extremely abundant and cheap source of power, such as solar power, ammonia production methods can be significantly improved. Molybdenum disulfide is a co-catalyst known to promote photoelectrochemical reduction of dinitrogen. Combining it with our newly developed, efficient, and low cost polycarbazole-based organic dyes, and fine-tuning of the band gaps of the system, such an efficient ammonia production method is being developed. Ammonia is also being studied as a low-cost, carbon neutral, environmentally benign hydrogen transport medium.

Steam methane reforming is the main industrial reaction responsible for the production of Hydrogen, which is a critical precursor in other processes, including the Haber-Bosch production of ammonia. One of the by-products of steam reforming is carbon dioxide - a common “greenhouse gas”, which should later be dealt with. A potential elegant solution to this problem is to photoelectrochemically reduce CO2 and store energy in the form of potentially useful products. One such project in the development utilizes previously mentioned carbazole-based organic dyes with the copper-nanoparticles - a catalyst known to assist CO2 reduction. This project seeks to develop and validate a new generation of photoelectrochemical electrodes to enable highly efficient, low-overpotential solar-driven conversion of dinitrogen to ammonia and carbon dioxide to value-added carbon products. By establishing a reliable and reproducible synthetic route, linking catalyst structure to electrochemical performance, and demonstrating high Faradaic efficiency, stability, and scalability on 1 cm² electrodes, the project aims to provide a transferable technological platform for sustainable fuel and fertilizer production.