Generation of reactive nitrogen species in water by plasma at atmospheric pressure

Nitrogen is a primary macronutrient used today in agriculture. Although the air consists of more than 78% of diazote, plants cannot use the atmospheric nitrogen (N) because the very stable electron configuration of this molecule which makes all reactions energy demanding. For this reason, industrial processes (e.g., Haber-Bosch process) have been developed during the last century to synthesize ammonia and related N-based fertilizer. However, these processes are often associated with major environmental concerns because they require nonrenewable feedstock (natural gas) to generate hydrogen by steam reforming process. In addition, they consume more than 1% of the world’s total energy production. Therefore, innovative processes are necessary to strongly reduce the environmental impact of this industry. In the last years, atmospheric plasma technology has been studied for the synthesis of NOx from air. The latter can potentially be converted into nitric acid when an ionized gas remains in contact with aqueous liquids. However, the energy cost for the synthesis of this fertilizer remains today too high to make the technology economically competitive. Different types of plasma and configuration will be investigated in this work to compare the power consumption of discharges using short electrical pulsations. The obtained result will contribute to better understand this approach and improve the future scale-up for this plasma technology.

Faculty Supervisor:

Gaétan Laroche

Student:

Partner:

Dissident

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

Université Laval

Program: