Oregon researchers make breakthrough discovery EUGENE, Ore. - University of Oregon chemists have discovered how to make active nitrogen at room temperature, a process that has eluded scientists for years.
The discovery is a step toward one of the holy grails of chemistry.
The process could make an important plant fertilizer easier to produce.
The finding by University of Oregon chemistry professor David Tyler and graduate students John Gilbertson and Nate Szymczak will be published later this month in the Journal of the American Chemistry Society.
Even though 70 percent of the earth's atmosphere is made of nitrogen, the molecules are bonded so closely together that they are inert.
To make the nitrogen available for biological processes, it must be "fixed," meaning that it must form a compound with another chemical - typically hydrogen. That produces ammonia which plants can extract from the soil and use to form proteins and the essential building blocks of life, Tyler said.
In their experiment, the three chemists succeeded in carrying out the process in an ether solution at room temperature - a significant advance.
Right now, ammonia for fertilizer is produced under extremely high temperatures and pressures using a century-old method of converting atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia.
Chemists have long tried to find a simpler and cheaper way to fix nitrogen.