Beyond acceptable limits: intrinsic contamination in commercial 15N2 impedes reliable N2 reduction experiments

Michiel De Ras; Lander Hollevoet; Johan. A. Martens; Tianxi Liu; Bart M. Nicolai; Maarten L. A. T. M. Hertog; Johan Hofkens; Maarten B. J. Roeffaers

doi:10.1039/D3GC04272C

Beyond acceptable limits: intrinsic contamination in commercial ¹⁵N₂ impedes reliable N₂ reduction experiments†

Michiel De Ras,

^a Lander Hollevoet,

^b Johan. A. Martens,

^b Tianxi Liu,^c Bart M. Nicolai,^d Maarten L. A. T. M. Hertog,^d Johan Hofkens

^ae and Maarten B. J. Roeffaers

*^f

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a Molecular Imaging and Photonics, Department of Chemistry, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200F, Leuven, Belgium

^b Centre of Surface Chemistry and Catalysis: Characterisation and Application team, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200F—box 2461, 3001 Leuven, Belgium

^c The Key Laboratory of Synthetic and Biological Colloids, Ministry of Education, School of Chemical and Material Engineering, International Joint Research Laboratory for Nano Energy Composites, Jiangnan University, Wuxi, China

^d MeBioS, Department of Biosystems, KU Leuven, Willem de Croylaan 42, 3001 Leuven, Belgium

^e Max Plank Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz, Germany

^f Centre for Membrane Separations, Adsorption, Catalysis, and Spectroscopy for Sustainable Solutions, Department of Microbial and Molecular Systems, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200F, 3001 Leuven, Belgium

Abstract

The validity of N₂ reduction experiments relies on control experiments with isotopically labeled ¹⁵N₂. Here we discovered significant ¹⁵NH₃ contamination (73 ppm) in commercial ¹⁵N₂ and also observed the prescence of oxidized ¹⁵N in amounts comparable to the typical reported ammonia yields.

This article is part of the themed collection: 2024 Green Chemistry Hot Articles

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Article information

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D3GC04272C
Article type: Communication
Submitted: 04 Nov 2023
Accepted: 04 Jan 2024
First published: 08 Jan 2024
This article is Open Access

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Green Chem., 2024,26, 1302-1305

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Beyond acceptable limits: intrinsic contamination in commercial ¹⁵N₂ impedes reliable N₂ reduction experiments

M. De Ras, L. Hollevoet, Johan. A. Martens, T. Liu, B. M. Nicolai, M. L. A. T. M. Hertog, J. Hofkens and M. B. J. Roeffaers, Green Chem., 2024, 26, 1302 DOI: 10.1039/D3GC04272C

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