Preview: Video on the DLR project SESAM: Using solar energy to produce high-purity nitrogen
Preview: Video on the DLR project SESAM: Using solar energy to produce high-purity nitrogen
Is it possible to obtain pure nitrogen for agriculture by combining solar heat and air? Absolutely! The current state of the art is to produce nitrogen using cryogenic air separation. However, this releases large amounts of CO2. An alternative process is thermochemical air separation, which works CO2-free by using solar heat. In the SESAM project, the DLR Institute of Future Fuels has coupled thermochemical air separation with pressure swing adsorption (PSA) and installed it in a pilot plant. In a two-stage process, the PSA plant produces low-purity nitrogen. Subsequently, most of the residual oxygen is removed in the thermochemical cycle. The solar-generated nitrogen can then be used to produce ammonia-based agricultural fertilizers.
Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)