Abstract
Nitrogen fixation heavily relies on the energy-intensive Haber-Bosch process, necessitating renewable alternatives. Here, we introduce a non-equilibrium spatially distributed electric field (SD-EF) strategy for nitrogen fixation in ambient air plasma. The optimized SD-EF strategy gives a NOx− yield of 9.8 mmol/h, tripling that of a uniform electric field and the N2 conversion is three times higher than most discharge configurations at similar or lower energy consumptions. This high NOx− yield is achieved through simultaneously activating two beneficial kinetic networks via SD-EF by having both high and low electric fields present: O3 and vibrational excitation of N2 (N2(v)) sub-mechanisms, which are revealed by developing a photonic crystal fiber diagnostic for in-situ quantification of molecules and ions (NO, NO2, N2O, O3, NO3−, and NO2−) in gas-liquid plasma. The establishment of the SD-EF strategy, coupled with in-situ gas-liquid diagnostics, is broadly applicable to plasma-assisted nitrogen fixation and holds promise for other plasma-assisted chemical conversion processes.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the 2023 National Key Research and Development Program of China (2023YFE0120900) and Office of Fusion Energy Sciences General Plasma Science program (Award Number DE-SC-0020232). The authors gratefully acknowledge Dr. Xiaofang Yang from Princeton NuEnergy for helpful discussions and valuable suggestions.
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S.Y.G., Y.W., and H.Z. conceptualized the project. B.R.G., J.G.C., and H.Z. supervised the project. S.Y.G., Y.W., and Y.T.G. performed the plasma experiments. Y.W. designed the optical fiber diagnostic system and processed the photothermal spectra data. S.Y.G. did the numerical simulation. S.Y.G., Y.W., B.R.G., and H.Z. analyzed the data. S.Y.G. and Y.W. wrote the manuscript. All the authors discussed the data and commented on the paper.
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Guo, S., Wang, Y., Guo, Y. et al. Nitrogen fixation in a non-equilibrium spatially distributed electric field. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-70272-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-70272-y
