Ammonia is one of the most produced commodity chemicals in the world. It is responsible for producing fertilizer required for global food production as well as a variety of specialty chemicals from explosives, to electrolyte for batteries, food additives and analytical reagents. The present conventional method (Haber-Bosch) to produce ammonia is unsustainable considering its large energy utility as well as greenhouse gas emissions. The availability of renewable resources like wind or solar energy, provides an opportunity to synthesize ammonia without carbon footprint. The intermittent nature of wind availability coupled with its co-location with high fertilizer demand, give rise to the idea of ammonia synthesis at small, distributed scale close to the end user. There is a growing interest in this method of ammonia synthesis as excess renewable energy can be stored as ammonia and converted back into electricity during periods of high-power demand. Renewable ammonia synthesis has the potential to be more sustainable than the current method based on fossil-fuels but is currently expensive. In order to reduce the cost of small-scale renewable ammonia production, process enhancement is needed. One of such developments led by researchers at the University of Minnesota, is replacing the separation by condensation with reactive absorption using metal halides. Although this method of ammonia separation is more efficient and can be employed closer to the reaction conditions, the absorbent material is unstable and shows decreasing capacity with prolonged usage. There is therefore need for investigation of structural and chemical properties that influence this stability and enhance the performance of the absorbent material.
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