Device uses wind to create ammonia out of air

The comments here are focused on how much energy it would take to turn this into fuel. The real story here is decentralized fertilizer production, buried at the end of the article:

> this innovation could fundamentally reshape fertilizer manufacturing by providing a more sustainable, cost-effective alternative to centralized production

The high energy cost of Haber-Bosch, plus the additional cost of transportation from manufacturer to farmer could potentially be eliminated by distributed, passive fertilizer generators scattered around in the fields.

I'm no expert, but assuming sufficient local production, low concentration could potentially be overcome by continuous fertilization with irrigation throughout the growing season.

Let's find out. Some quick fiddling with a molarity calculator and an almanac:

-- 100 uM ammonia -> 1.7 mg / L ammonia

-- 82% nitrogen -> 1.4 mg / L nitrogen

-- My lawn needs around 1 lb / 1000 sq ft, or around 5 g / m2

-- So my lawn needs about 3500 L / m2 of fertilized irrigation total for the season

-- Ballpark farming irrigation is around 0.2 inches per day, or around 5L/m2

I would need to water my lawn about 700 days in the year, or more realistically up my irrigation rate by about a factor of 4, AND source all of the water from the fertilizer box.

I'm a little skeptical that I can allocate space for enough production and still have a lawn left to fertilize. The tech probably isn't ready for the big time on an industrial farm yet, but for research demo, this seems like a promising direction! Much more than concentrating it for fuel.

Until big fertilizer lobbies to make decentralized fertilizer illegal. Insert national security, wrong hands blah blah

> Insert national security, wrong hands blah blah

That isn't a big reach.

Ammonium nitrate is already controlled in several parts of the world

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANFO

ANFO is explosives made with ammonium nitrate(Ammonium Nitrate Fuel Oil), however ammonium nitrate is by itself rather energetic and will explode when store improperly. The most recent memorable incident would be 2020 Beirut: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Beirut_explosion

Imagine one of these units left somewhere, slowly filling a tank that has not been sealed, water evaporating back out leaving a nice ammonium nitrate powder behind....

I'm no chemist so someone will have to explain to me how ammonia sitting around by itself, without water, just becomes ammonium nitrate.