Photosynthesis of NH ₃ from NO ₃ ⁻ Using CH ₄ in Homogenous Rhenium Catalysis

Abstract We present Re catalysis of one‐pot synthesis of NH 3 from NO 3 − using CH 4 as a reductant under UV light irradiation at room temperature. NO 3 − leads to environmental issues such as water contamination, eutrophication, and biodiversity loss. In a natural system and a sewage facility, NO 3 − can be detoxified to N 2 using hydrogen donors by a microbial process. However, it is better to convert NO 3 − to NH 3 rather than N 2 . To develop a desirable process of NO 3 − to NH 3 for a sustainable society, it is required that the reducing agent is derived from a renewable resource/energy. Thus, we turned our attention to CH 4 , which has a high affinity with renewable resource/energy since it can be produced from livestock waste. Therefore, our system reported here is to directly convert NO 3 − to NH 3 using CH 4 with light energy.