Beyond fossil fuel-driven nitrogen transformations

Jingguang G Chen; Richard M Crooks; Lance C Seefeldt; Kara L Bren; R Morris Bullock; Marcetta Y Darensbourg; Patrick L Holland; Brian Hoffman; Michael J Janik; Anne K Jones; Mercouri G Kanatzidis; Paul King; Kyle M Lancaster; Sergei V Lymar; Peter Pfromm; William F Schneider; Richard R Schrock

doi:10.1126/science.aar6611

Beyond fossil fuel-driven nitrogen transformations

Science. 2018 May 25;360(6391):eaar6611. doi: 10.1126/science.aar6611.

Authors

Jingguang G Chen^{1

2}, Richard M Crooks³, Lance C Seefeldt⁴, Kara L Bren⁵, R Morris Bullock⁶, Marcetta Y Darensbourg⁷, Patrick L Holland⁸, Brian Hoffman⁹, Michael J Janik¹⁰, Anne K Jones¹¹, Mercouri G Kanatzidis⁹, Paul King¹², Kyle M Lancaster¹³, Sergei V Lymar², Peter Pfromm¹⁴, William F Schneider¹⁵, Richard R Schrock¹⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA. jgchen@columbia.edu crooks@cm.utexas.edu lance.seefeldt@usu.edu.
² Chemistry Division, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973, USA.
³ Department of Chemistry, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA. jgchen@columbia.edu crooks@cm.utexas.edu lance.seefeldt@usu.edu.
⁴ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84332, USA. jgchen@columbia.edu crooks@cm.utexas.edu lance.seefeldt@usu.edu.
⁵ Department of Chemistry, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627, USA.
⁶ Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352, USA.
⁷ Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
⁸ Department of Chemistry, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA.
⁹ Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Chemical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
¹¹ School of Molecular Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85282, USA.
¹² National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO 80401, USA.
¹³ Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Cornell University, Baker Laboratory, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
¹⁴ Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164-6515, USA.
¹⁵ Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA.
¹⁶ Department of Chemistry, MIT, 6-331, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

Abstract

Nitrogen is fundamental to all of life and many industrial processes. The interchange of nitrogen oxidation states in the industrial production of ammonia, nitric acid, and other commodity chemicals is largely powered by fossil fuels. A key goal of contemporary research in the field of nitrogen chemistry is to minimize the use of fossil fuels by developing more efficient heterogeneous, homogeneous, photo-, and electrocatalytic processes or by adapting the enzymatic processes underlying the natural nitrogen cycle. These approaches, as well as the challenges involved, are discussed in this Review.

Publication types

Review
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Grants and funding

R01 GM065313/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States