Decreasing carbon emissions for future crop production
Decreasing carbon emissions for future crop production lead image
For over a century, agriculturists have used ammonium nitrate as fertilizer to enhance crop production. However, the commonly used Haber-Bosch (HB) process produces 300 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, significantly contributing to climate change. Al-Amin et al. developed a plasma-assisted method that produces nitrogen oxide compounds without CO2 emission.
The team’s method produces nitrogen oxide in water using a submerged air bubble discharge plasma jet under the effect of a steady axial magnetic field, a novel method according to the authors. The team showed that applying a magnetic field increased nitrogen oxide concentration, reduced energy cost by about 78 percent, and lowered radial electron diffusion loss compared to performing the same techniques without a magnetic field.
“Enhancement of NOx production in water can be carried out by different types of power sources and electrode configurations,” author Mamunur Rashid Talukder said.
The team created a plasma jet generator in a Pyrex glass tube, which was filled with water and connected to the a high-voltage source and gas flow line. A magnetic field was then created using bar magnets. The team used optical emission spectroscopic methods to characterize the sample, determining gas-phase plasma parameters, and optical absorption spectroscopic methods to estimate the amount of nitrogen oxide in the water.
To fully grasp the potential of this method, more experimentation is necessary.
“NOx production in water with this experimental setup has to be optimized under different experimental conditions, such as axial magnet field strength, gas flow rate, electric field, saturated concentration of NOx in water, and so on,” Talukder said.
Source: “Enhancement of NOx production in water by combining an air bubble plasma jet and an external magnetic field,” by Md. Al-Amin, Abhishek Kumar Sah, N. C. Roy, and M. R. Talukder, Physics of Plasmas (2023). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0161173 .
