By Sid Perkins
For almost a century, industrial chemists have had to rely on hellishly high temperatures and gas pressures to cleave the tenacious chemical bond that holds together each two-atom nitrogen molecule. That done, chemists can use the nitrogen from the atmosphere to make fertilizers, explosives, and other modern products. Now, researchers have devised a way to split nitrogen molecules under milder conditions within liquids, a step that may inaugurate a variety of energy-efficient techniques for creating nitrogen-bearing substances.
The triple bond between a nitrogen molecule’s atoms is one of the strongest chemical attractions around. In nature, only the megavoltage of a lightning bolt and the potent enzymes in some soil bacteria and fungi can split nitrogen molecules, says chemist Paul J. Chirik of Cornell University.