Market and product

Compiled by Bao Hien

The ammonia industry—the source of the basic feedstock for most synthetic nitrogen fertilizers worldwide—is witnessing a wave of intensive research aimed at replacing parts of the traditional Haber-Bosch process, which has been in use for more than a century but is highly emissions-intensive. A growing body of recent reports and scientific studies shows that the technology landscape is diverging into multiple pathways, each with its own level of technological readiness and distinct economic and engineering challenges.

The Scale of the Problem: Fertilizer Emissions Exceed Those of Aviation

According to a report by the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) in the United States, the fertilizer industry currently generates total greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 1.31 billion tonnes of CO2 per year—higher than the combined emissions of the aviation and shipping industries. Ammonia synthesis alone accounts for as much as 84% of emissions from fertilizer production, mainly because the hydrogen feedstock is extracted from natural gas through steam methane reforming, a process responsible for more than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Green Ammonia from Electrolysis: The Clearest Pathway but at High Cost

The most technologically mature pathway currently involves using renewable electricity to electrolyze water and produce hydrogen, which is then combined with nitrogen through the conventional Haber-Bosch process powered by clean energy. According to a review published in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, this pathway had made "irreversible" progress by early 2026, but the production cost of electrolytic ammonia remains at around USD 680–900 per tonne, significantly higher than that of conventional ammonia, largely because of the high costs associated with gas separation and hydrogen storage. The same study forecasts that this cost could fall to around USD 400 per tonne by 2030 as electrolyzer technology improves and renewable electricity prices continue to decline.

Electrochemical Ammonia: Impressive Laboratory Performance but Difficult to Scale Up

Rather than separating electrolysis and Haber-Bosch into two stages, the direct electrochemical approach uses electricity to reduce nitrogen to ammonia in a single step. According to the study above, electrochemical nitrogen reduction—particularly lithium-mediated approaches—has achieved Faradaic efficiencies of up to 100% in some laboratory experiments, but scaling the technology to industrial levels remains a major challenge. Another study published in June 2026 in Clean Energy by Oxford Academic identified a specific technical limitation: the solubility of nitrogen gas in the electrolyte is very low, at around 0.65 millimoles per liter. This allows the competing hydrogen evolution reaction to directly compete with the desired ammonia-forming reaction, representing one of the core technical barriers that catalyst-material researchers, including groups using artificial intelligence to discover new materials, are working to overcome.

Plasma Ammonia: Costs Remain Several Times Higher than Haber-Bosch

Plasma-based reactors for direct ammonia synthesis emerged even before Haber-Bosch, dating back to 1903, but were eventually displaced because of their lower efficiency. A notable new direction, according to a scientific news release from EurekAlert citing a review published in late June 2026, is to combine two stages: first, using plasma to oxidize nitrogen gas into nitrogen oxides, achieving an NO concentration of 9,710 parts per million with 94% selectivity; and then using electrochemical or photocatalytic methods to reduce these oxides to ammonia. When the plasma and photocatalytic steps were combined, the research team achieved 100% NO conversion and 98.33% ammonia selectivity, while maintaining stable operation for 240 consecutive hours—a notable result in terms of durability.

However, the biggest limitation remains the very low energy efficiency of the plasma step, at only 0.25–7%. As a result, the equivalent production cost of ammonia using this approach ranges from USD 1.8–2.5 per kilogram, two to five times higher than the USD 0.5–0.8 per kilogram estimated for the conventional Haber-Bosch process. The study also highlights a less widely discussed issue: accurately determining the concentration of ammonia produced at low levels is difficult, and nitrogen-15 isotope labeling is currently the only sufficiently reliable method for confirming the actual origin of the ammonia generated and avoiding false-positive results—an important caveat regarding the reliability of many studies published in this field.

Photocatalytic Ammonia: Multiple Catalyst Materials Being Patented in Parallel

According to a patent analysis published by PatSnap in April 2026, the photocatalytic pathway—using semiconductor materials that absorb sunlight to split water and reduce nitrogen—is being pursued by research groups around the world using a range of different materials. These include bismuth oxyhalide-based catalysts developed at the University of Melbourne, Australia; titanium dioxide-based materials at the University of Tokyo, Japan; and structurally defective bismuth semiconductors at Jilin University, China. Other groups, such as Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), are developing photoelectrochemical cells that combine a photoanode for water oxidation and a catalytic cathode for nitrogen reduction in a single device. This eliminates the need for separate electrolysis equipment, although the technology remains less mature than electrochemical or plasma-based approaches.

Another Pathway: Using Metal Nitride Slags as an Intermediate

Beyond the pathways described above, PatSnap's analysis also identifies another approach known as "thermochemical looping." This method separates the reaction between nitrogen and hydrogen by using a solid metal nitride compound, such as vanadium nitride or iron-nitrogen compounds, as an intermediate to temporarily store nitrogen, rather than allowing the two gases to react directly as in the conventional Haber-Bosch process. Another review published in mid-June 2026 in Processes also identifies this approach as one of the notable technological pathways, alongside those based on renewable hydrogen, biomass and waste, electrochemical processes, photocatalysis/photoelectrochemistry, plasma and biological methods. This indicates that current research has expanded into a wide range of parallel technological branches rather than focusing on only a few major pathways.

The Common Challenge: Technical Efficiency Alone Is Not Enough; Market Standards Are Also Needed

According to an RMI survey involving a working group of 14 companies and 10 policy groups in the United States, even if the technical challenges described above are resolved, the biggest demand-side barrier remains competitive pricing. The second most important barrier is the lack of standards for distinguishing low-carbon fertilizers in the market. This makes it difficult for buyers to identify and pay a premium for lower-emission products, even when the production process does not alter the properties or use of the finished fertilizer.