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Resource recovery

En route to a circular nitrogen economy

Nature Sustainability (2024)Cite this article

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Recovering ammonia from industrial wastewater via nitrate-to-ammonia reduction for a more sustainable nitrogen cycle faces challenges due to complex wastewater matrices and suboptimal reactor design. Now, research presents a membrane-free electrolysis system that enables efficient and stable ammonia recovery from actual wastewater.

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Fig. 1: Schematic diagram of electrochemical reduction of nitrate in wastewater to economically valuable NH3 using renewable energy.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Lei Shi & Huiyuan Zhu

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  1. Lei Shi
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  2. Huiyuan Zhu
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Correspondence to Huiyuan Zhu.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Shi, L., Zhu, H. En route to a circular nitrogen economy. Nat Sustain (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01407-6

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