Plasma Oxidation and Reduction of Nitrogen: Towards Electrification of Nitrogen Fixation

Dear Colleagues,

We are honoured to announce this Special Issue of Applied Sciences. We cordially invite authors to contribute their works, which we expect to be focussed on all aspects of N₂ fixation by plasma, including experimental and computational research in areas of plasma chemistry, physics, biomedicine, catalysis, diagnostics, etc.

Nitrogen fixation has always been one of the most challenging tasks of sustainable production research. Both reduced and oxidised nitrogen (e.g., ammonia, nitrogen oxides, peroxynitrous compounds) are crucial chemicals in modern agriculture, biomedicine, fuel and energy industry. The naturally occurring N₂ fixation is becoming negligible compared to the ever-growing global demand. At the same time, the industrial processes of N₂ fixation are highly energy demanding, and rely on fossil-derived energy, thus massively contributing to the total global CO₂ emissions. Naturally, new, more benign routes of N₂ fixation are under investigation. Among these are the processes involving plasma.

The naturally occurring N₂ fixation is becoming negligible compared to the ever-growing global demand, while the chemical production of NH₃ alone reaches hundreds of millions of tonnes, predominantly by the Haber-Bosch process, which relies heavily on fossil-derived energy and massively contributes to the total global CO₂ emissions. Naturally, new, more benign routes of N₂ fixation are under investigation. Among these are the processes involving plasma.

The many examples of plasma discharges for N₂ fixation range from the early Birkeland-Eyde process with oxygen to the recent advances of plasma with nitrogen and hydrogen, or even simply water. These produce NH₃ or nitrogen oxides, sought-after as feedstock for fertilisers. In biomedicine, peroxynitrite has been identified as one of the main chemicals responsible e.g. for the anti-cancer effects of plasma. In both cases, plasmas offer a simple, on-spot production of chemicals, eliminating the requirement for their storage.

In the past 5 years, the highly interdisciplinary research in N₂ fixation has grown beyond the plasma field specifically, for example combining plasma with catalytic or electrochemical processes. This vast interest in plasma-assisted and plasma-driven methods is due to their operation under benign conditions, which complies with the desired electrification of chemical industry, leading towards a more sustainable future.

Dr. Yury Gorbanev
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Nitrogen fixation
• Plasma chemistry
• Plasma catalysis
• Plasma physics
• Plasma diagnostics
• Ammonia
• Nitrogen oxides