Solar Urea: Towards a Sustainable Fertilizer Industry

Urea, an agricultural fertilizer, nourishes humanity. The century-old Bosch-Meiser process provides the world's urea. It is multi-step, consumes enormous amounts of non-renewable energy, and has a large CO2 footprint. Thus, developing an eco-friendly synthesis for urea is a priority. Herein we report a single-step Pd/LTA-3A catalyzed synthesis of urea from CO2 and NH3 under ambient conditions powered solely by solar energy. Pd nanoparticles serve the dual function of catalyzing the dissociation of NH3 and providing the photothermal driving force for urea formation, while the absorption capacity of LTA-3A removes by-product H2O to shift the equilibrium towards urea production. The solar urea conversion rate from NH3 and CO2 is 87 mu mol g(-1) h(-1). This advance represents a first step towards the use of solar energy in urea production. It provides insights into green fertilizer production, and inspires the vision of sustainable, modular plants for distributed production of urea on farms.

Automated summary

This research presents an eco-friendly method for synthesizing urea from CO2 and NH3 using solar energy at room temperature, demonstrating the potential for utilizing solar energy in urea production and providing new insights for sustainable, modular plants for distributed urea production on farms.