Novel catalyst design boosts solar-driven ammonia production under mild conditions

Sunlight, water, air and metal-organic catalysts—that could be all it takes. TU Wien has shown how catalyst design can be advanced for solar-driven NH3 synthesis. Without this chemical technology, feeding the world as we know it would be nearly impossible. The Haber-Bosch process, developed more than a century ago, converts nitrogen from the air into ammonia—the key ingredient in most synthetic fertilizers. Today, roughly half of the world's food production depends on fertilizers derived from ammonia, making the Haber-Bosch process one of the most important industrial innovations in human history.