Ammonia Synthesis is the production of ammonia from the combination of hydrogen andnitrogen gases. Most of the ammonia produced is used as fertilizer, although it can be used for other purposes, such as making explosives. The process was developed in Germany in the early 1900s.The atmosphere is full of nitrogen gas, but it is unreactive and generally does not combine with other elements. The basic strategy for making ammonia, NH3, is to combine hydrogen gas, H2, with nitrogen gas, N2, at a high temperature and under high pressure. Chemically, this is a difficult reaction, so it requires an agent to speed up the process.
A catalyst is a compound that makes a reaction proceed more quickly. In ammonia synthesis, the catalyst used is generally iron. The type of iron used is reduced magnetite ore. There are other chemicals that can be used as catalysts, but iron is the most common.
The source of the hydrogen gas is usually natural gas, also known as methane, CH4. This describes the basic process of ammonia synthesis. Many other steps take place in anammonia synthesis plant. Sulfur compounds are first removed from the natural gas by reacting with zinc oxide, which is transformed to zinc sulfide. This leaves free methane, which goes through several more transformations to generate hydrogen gas.