We use a lot of energy in the Haber–Bosch process to make ammonia. Several exajoules, globally. But it’s a multistep process. The reformers, ASU, etc. are all hefty energy users. I’m wondering what percentage of the energy is used for the reactor that converts hydrogen and nitrogen to ammonia. I’ve looked around but haven’t found a good breakdown of any process flow diagrams I’ve seen.
Some people try to make better Haber–Bosch catalysts. But even if you dropped the barrier to zero and had a diffusion-limited reaction at room temperature, where K[sub]eq[/sub] is actually reasonable, I’m wondering what we’d get out of that with respect to the entire process.