Renewable wind energy can be used to make ammonia. However, wind-generated ammonia costs about twice that made from a traditional fossil-fuel driven process. To reduce the production cost, we replace the conventional ammonia condensation with a selective absorber containing metal halides, e.g., calcium chloride, operating at near synthesis temperatures. With this reaction-absorption process, ammonia can be synthesized at 20 bar from air, water, and wind-generated electricity, with rates comparable to the conventional process running at 150–300 bar. In our reaction-absorption process, the rate of ammonia synthesis is now controlled not by the chemical reaction but largely by the pump used to recycle the unreacted gases. The results suggest an alternative route to distributed ammonia manufacture which can locally supply nitrogen fertilizer and also a method to capture stranded wind energy as a carbon-neutral liquid fuel.

中文翻译：

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在较低的压力下将风能转化为氨

可再生的风能可用于制造氨。但是，风产生的氨的成本大约是传统化石燃料驱动过程产生的氨的两倍。为了降低生产成本，我们用一种选择性吸收剂代替了常规的氨缩合反应，该选择性吸收剂包含一种在接近合成温度下运行的金属卤化物（例如氯化钙）。通过这种反应吸收工艺，可以在20 bar的压力下从空气，水和风力发电中合成氨，其速率与在150–300 bar的常规工艺相当。在我们的反应吸收过程中，氨的合成速率现在不由化学反应控制，而主要由用于循环未反应气体的泵控制。