Professor Shelley Minteer, along with postdoctoral researcher Ross D. Milton had their work published in C&EN in an article by Stephen K. Ritter titled “Nabbing nitrogen from the air to make fertilizer for the farm.” Their work involves a bioelectrochemical process they developed in which an enzyme-based fuel cell produces NH₃ from N₂ and H₂ at room temperature and pressure. Minteer presented the details at the American Chemical Society meeting that took place April 2-6 in San Francisco, CA. You can read the full article here.

An enzymatic fuel cell designed by Minteer and Milton, which consists of a hydrogenase enzyme that oxidizes H2 and a nitrogenase that reduces N2 in an overall process that produces NH3, along with a small surplus of electricity (MV = methyl viologen, ATP = adenosine triphosphate, ADP = adenosine diphosphate).