Strategically Designed Catalysts for Ammonia Synthesis Under Mild Conditions: Recent Advances and Challenges

Abstract

The role of ammonia would continue to be significant in the changing energy landscape with focus on mitigating carbon footprints per unit of ammonia production. Since ammonia is a zero-carbon molecule and increasingly considered as an important hydrogen energy carrier for future energy systems, its generation under mild conditions and subsequent industrial acceptance becomes critical. Therefore, the recent challenges are to design and engineer alternative but greener methods that can generate ammonia at low input energy that will facilitate inexpensive, localized, and renewable-coupled ammonia generation. This review underscores the recent development in design strategies of novel catalysts, specially emphasizing recent advances in different class of thermal, electrochemical, and non-thermal plasmacatalysis that can generate ammonia under mild conditions. Hence, this article can serve as a comprehensive work for engineering novel catalysts and methods which can contribute to generation of sustainable and cost-efficient solutions for expanding landscape of ammonia applications.