Van Marum Colloquium: Sustainable electrosynthesis of hydrogen and ammonia
- Date
- Friday 14 February 2025
- Time
- Location
-
Gorlaeus Building
Einsteinweg 55
2333 CC Leiden - Room
- CM.3.23
Abstract
Hydrogen and ammonia are some of the most important commodity chemicals, and both will likely find even broader applications as carbon-free energy carriers in the immediate future. To make this vision a reality, robust renewable-powered electrochemical methods to produce H2 and NH3 are needed. Notwithstanding water electrolysis for green hydrogen generation was discovered more than two centuries ago, it is yet to become a major method for the industrial H2 production, especially using intermittent renewable electricity and seawater in the most sustainable version of this process. Production of NH3 can be also entirely powered by renewables in an electrochemical process, although broad deployment of this technology is unlikely to be achieved immediately due to a range of yet to be resolved technological and fundamental limitations. The talk will introduce our vision on the evolution of the hydrogen and ammonia economy with a particular focus on non-conventional water electrolysis and redox-mediated nitrogen reduction strategies. Approaches to understand how these processes operate using advanced electrochemical and in situ spectroscopic techniques will be also discussed. Finally, our efforts towards commercialisation of the ammonia electrosynthesis through a spin-out company Jupiter Ionics Pty Ltd will be briefly highlighted.
Biography
Associate Professor Alexandr N. Simonov is a physical chemist specialising in (photo)electrochemistry, (photo)electrocatalysis and in situspectroelectrochemistry. Research in his group is aimed at understanding and designing new effective ways to generate and use renewable electricity for the sustainable energy and chemistry technologies. His major research focuses on the development of materials, electrode architectures and electrolytic devices for generation of hydrogen through splitting of water, reduction of nitrogen to ammonia, as well as selective oxidation of ammonia and nitrogen to nitrates for fertiliser generation. He collaborates with Australian and German industry on several projects aiming to develop new cost-effective water electrolysers. He is a co-founder of a spin-out company Jupiter Ionics Pty Ltd. working on the commercialisation of the Monash technologies for the renewable ammonia and fertiliser production.