Arctura awarded $1.15M from the Department of Energy to develop new green nitric acid technology.

Arctura announced today that it has won a $1.15M Phase II SBIR grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to advance a new “green nitric acid” technology.

Nitric acid is a valuable industrial chemical widely used in applications like nitrogen fertilizers, explosives, and common derivatives such as nylon and polyurethane.  However, today’s industrial nitric acid plants are fueled by natural gas and, as a result, the industry is one of the leading emitters of greenhouse gases, contributing 0.3% of global emissions.

Arctura is developing a novel atmospheric plasma process to produce nitric acid- using only air, water, and electricity- which has the potential to reduce costs and eliminate greenhouse gas emissions.  Integrating this technology with renewable assets will help to balance grid demand during off-peak periods and reduce asset curtailment, providing an important service to the renewable energy plants while lowering the cost of nitric acid production due to cheap renewable electricity.

You can see the full press release here.