Interview on Research Turning Wastewater Into Fertilizer

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Unpublished)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): Unknown

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So there has been some work on turning wastewater into fertilizer with a promising green method. This is the focus of some of the recent research output. To start, how long has this particular research been ongoing?

Unknown Researcher: if my memory is accurate, we started this work about two years ago when one of my posts was doing my group. I specifically find this target to him. In the beginning, we didn’t have any experience exploring these. It was relatively new to us and the whole field at that time. So we spent a lot of time trying to set up the right protocols to do the task and find a good catalyst to understand what’s going on. So, it takes some time to dig deeper into the idea.

Jacobsen: And why is this standard Haber Bosch procedure energy intensive for producing nitrogen gas into ammonia?

Unknown Researcher: So the traditional Haber Bosch process, that’s the global population of about seven billion, right. Even though what we expect is a significant increase in the population in the next decade or so. But you think that Haber Bosch has been one of the most, most exciting and important industries for the past five to 10 decades to feed the whole population. We cannot have that control. But the thing is, during that process, it consumes a lot of hydrogen from the steam reforming process. So, during that process, a lot of CO2 will be generated. So basically, what that process is, they take their natural gas and then crack it to generate the hydrogen, doing that process to work it out. OK, that contributes about one to two percent of the current global CO2 emission. Think about that scale, right?

Not only do the chemical feedstocks need to use that hydrogen, but the reaction conditions are high pressure and high temperature. So, all adds up to say that it consumes about 1.2 percent of global energy consumption.

Jacobsen: Now that’s very impressive. So, at the collection, researchers came from Calgary, Toronto, Houston and Tennessee to develop this green process for converting nitrates NO3 into industrial wastewater into ammonia; the nitrates in industrial wastewater into ammonia. What was the first spark of insight into the feasibility of this new green method?

Unknown Researcher: So, actually, the story is very interesting. Initially, we were not considering using nitrate as a source to generate ammonia. At the very beginning, what we wanted to do was electrochemical; we wanted to reduce the nitrogen gas. The reason is very obvious, right? We get the natural gas everywhere in our air. Atmosphere, 70 percent is natural gas. But the problem is, even though the field is very exciting. A lot of people are jumping into that field, the problem is that nitrogen gas is such an inert molecule and the production rate and reaction activity if you want to reduce nitrogen gas to ammonia is so low and which makes it very unlikely for near future industrialization. Because the generation rate is so low compared to the Haber Bosch, and the energy cost is very high actually because you need to put a lot of energy to drive that reaction also.

So that loses that many to the automated way for Haber Bosch, right. Then, we try to think of another nitrogen source for ammonia production. And it turns out they attract a lot of about the nitrate ions. The reason why we thought about nitrate ions is because I’m located in the Houston area, and we have a lot of skeptical industrial plants. We learned much about the treatment, and they always mentioned nitrate treatment. And then that raised my interest. OK. You must treat nitrate; you cannot discharge the water into the atmosphere. And how about we use that nitrogen generated from the chemical petroleum industry? But that started our first exploration to see if we can electrochemically convert those. So, by nitrating wastewater backing to somebody with a product like ammonia. And the test ought to be working very well.

Jacobsen: What was the particular toolset used at Canadian Light Source, the research center at the University of Saskatchewan, to get this work under practical effects and testing?

Unknown Researcher: So it has to be a very long time, not that long, but quite a few years of exciting collaboration experience with the Canadian Light Source. We collaborate a lot with the scientific and research staff, but not for this work, which dates back many years ago when we started the collaboration. The unique part they can provide us is their very strong X-ray beams. So we can use that X-ray beam to detect many of the material’s properties, which we cannot regularly do in our university, home, or lab because we cannot produce that high X-ray energy. However, the Canadian light source has synchrotron-based electrons. They can make a lot of high-energy light X-rays that can penetrate the materials and excite some of the electrons, which is very interesting.

And then we detect that. We know what’s going on in our materials. For example, in this work, we want to produce a catalyst that is called a single-atom catalyst, which is a relatively new concept for research in recent years. And that is unique compared to its particle or bulk counterparts because we want to use isolated atoms instead of atom clusters. The X-ray beam can tell us if we synthesize those isolated single atomic science or if the materials we synthesize are clusters or nanoparticles.

Jacobsen: Is this a more efficient and environmentally friendly way of producing ammonia?

Unknown Researcher: So I want to be more conservative, even though the work is really exciting, and it could be a very green and sustainable alternative to Haber Bosch. But I never can imagine it can completely replace Haber Bosch. I can tell you the reason why we cannot say that it can replace Haber Bosch because this process is limited by military sources, even though our industry, our chemical plants, are producing a lot of nitrate. But think about that scale; even considering all the plants you accumulate and all the nitrate from the wastewater, it will not deliver the scale of a Haber Bosch process to feed the global population. But the thing is, as long as we can replace a portion or a significant portion of the Haber Bosch process to produce ammonia, we can contribute a lot to the human beings’ combination of decarbonization; that’s the reason why we need to try every single method that is possible to make unique contributions for a sustainable and greener the production of ammonia.

Jacobsen: How could you fine-tune that process to get a more concentrated form of ammonia from the wastewater? How can you use the findings from the recent research done over some time in collaboration to produce an efficacy that you could scale up to a significant portion of replacement of the Haber Bosch process?

Unknown Researcher: Yes. So I think that means a lot of collaborations, not only within the Academic Industry Institute but also needs to have a strong connection with the industry. So that’s also the next phase of our research. We will promote our existing technology to our industrial partners to see if there is any interest in them. We are also further improving the catalytic performance of our catalysts and the production rate. So now our ongoing work has even more exciting results that are a follow-up to our published work. We now can deliver even higher production rates under even lower nitrate sources. So, all of this put together, I think we will continue to push forward in this field. As I mentioned earlier, this field is still relatively new, and there are still a lot of challenges and obstacles that we need to consider and address, but I think the future should be very bright.

Jacobsen: That’s fabulous. Who are you looking to collaborate with in the future? So, you collaborated with scientists from Calgary, Toronto, Houston, and Tennessee. How can you expand upon that current network? How do you intend to expand upon that current network?

Unknown Researcher: So I think collaboration, there is no boundary for collaboration. So that’s my principle. So, as long as there is a common interest and we can help each other, we feel free to collaborate. So that’s the single principle. For the ongoing work, we also collaborate with professors at Arizona State University and so on. Also, we are contacting local municipal water treatment plants to get a lot of the wastewater samples from them for field tests. So we are completely open to different types of collaborations, including both government, industry and academic institutes. So there are many things to do, and we don’t have a clear, I’ll just say, we don’t have exactly the scope of, the range of collaborators we need to explore. As the research moves forward, we will know whom we should collaborate with at this certain point. Yes, including the big chemical producers like Chevron, who are located in the Houston area. We are keeping very close contact with them for this technology. Yeah.

Jacobsen: And how about the Canadian light source? What other kind of work are you hoping to do through it?

Unknown Researcher: So, I think the Canadian light force is unique in terms of the characterization of materials. As I mentioned, a key part of that process is finding the right materials to do the conversion. The materials need a lot of development characterization and back-and-forth optimization. So that’s really why Canadian light sources play a very important role in helping us with the Advanced Materials popularization tool to help us understand, OK, what’s going on in those materials? What’s the active site in those materials, and how can we further improve the materials? So I think that’s its unique part.

Jacobsen: I will ask about collaboration in science as a general academic matter. For those who don’t have that kind of training or know-how within the academic system in collaboration with industry. What is the importance of teamwork and large enough budgets in modern science? For instance, we have this common idea of an Einstein or Newton figure who mainly counts as an individual or sole person who produces these amazing theories. Modern science is much different. How would you characterize this teamwork network and finance-based form of modern science?

Unknown Researcher: I think that’s a fantastic question. From my perspective, the scientific development is completely different from what we had about 100 years ago. A single person can develop a theory that can change the world. No, I think a lot of collaborations are needed now. This is because, for a single institute, you cannot host all the characterization tools. You cannot host all the resources needed to make a big impact; that’s one thing. So that’s why we need to always find collaborators who have the complementary two skills that can support our ongoing research, not only in domestic collaborations but also in international collaborations. Number two, you mentioned the fund or the financial support, which is also important because even though you have ideas, if you cannot realize your idea, then your idea will be meaningless, at least not that meaningful, OK?

So that’s the reason why we emphasize a practice that means a lot of human resources. You can think about what you need to put students. You need to put researchers. You need to put postdocs to do the job to realize that idea and try back and forth to do materials characterization synthesis and everything. You need strong human resource support to realize that idea. Also, starting from the inside, you want to develop an industrial process. Industrial people also need to invest a lot of human resources, teamwork, etc. So that’s what I said. It’s not only a theory breakthrough. Nowadays, most scientific breakthroughs are collaborative work because it’s now getting more and more difficult for a spark to turn into reality, even taking the example of lithium-ion batteries. Successful batteries do not come from only one laboratory, right? These come from different laboratories’ collaborative work with a big community and industry and make today’s success, though. So that’s my perspective. Yeah.

Jacobsen: Thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate that.

Unknown Researcher: Thank you.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.