USING NITROGEN AS A FEEDSTOCK FOR ORGANONITROGEN CHEMICALS

Abstract

An alternative approach to produce N-containing organic compounds directly from N2 gas via a chemical looping strategy was reported here. Iron nitride was identified to be a promising candidate as nitrogen carrier. The chemical looping consists of two consecutive halves, the first half is the reaction of iron nitride with organic substrate to produce organonitrogen compounds under H2, the second half is the fixation of N2 gas to form iron nitride. The maximum nitrogen utilization efficiency reached 95% under 250 ℃ and 10 bar. The proposed reaction mechanism involved the interaction of organics with the lattice nitrogen. Also, the addition of the second metal Mn was found to promote the nitrogen selectivity towards organonitrogen compounds. Lastly, for the second half of the chemical looping, FeCoOx was found to dissolve nitrogen under N2/H2 mixed atmosphere. Therefore, the concept of chemical looping has been preliminarily demonstrated.