UB professor Li named Cottrell Scholar for lightning-inspired green ammonia reactor

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Chris Li, a University at Buffalo chemist developing a reactor for green ammonia synthesis, has received a Cottrell Scholar Award from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA). 

He is among 16 early-career scholars in chemistry, physics and astronomy named to the 2025 Class of Cottrell Scholars, each of whom will receive $120,000. The scholars will meet this July in Tucson, Arizona, at the annual Cottrell Scholar Conference.

“These distinguished awardees join a multidisciplinary, multigenerational force of more than 500 Cottrell Scholars from colleges and universities across the United States and Canada,” says Daniel Linzer, president and CEO of RCSA, which is the first U.S. foundation dedicated wholly to science. “In their own classrooms and labs, and together through projects with national impact, Cottrell Scholars are innovators in science and teaching at their own institutions and beyond.”

Li, PhD, is an assistant professor of chemistry in the UB College of Arts and Sciences. He received the Cottrell Scholar Award for his proposal, “Development of a Plasma Electrochemical System for Air-to-Ammonia Conversion.”

Described in a study published last year in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Li’s plasma-electrochemical reactor can produce ammonia from nitrogen in the air and water, without any carbon footprint. 

It does so by mimicking nature’s nitrogen cycle. Lightning breaks apart nitrogen molecules in the atmosphere and converts them into nitrogen oxide fragments. These fragments then fall down as rainwater to the soil, where bacteria convert them into ammonia that can be consumed by plants. 

In Li’s two-step reactor, lightning is replaced by plasma and the role of bacteria is replaced by a catalyst of copper-palladium. 

The goal is to replace the current industrial method for producing ammonia needed for synthetic fertilizers. The Haber-Bosch process quite literally feeds the world and enabled the population explosion of the last century, but also consumes about 2% of the world’s total energy supply and requires fossil fuels. 

Li’s team is in the process of scaling up the reactor and exploring both a startup and partnerships with industry to help commercialize it. UB’s Technology Transfer Office has filed a patent application on the reactor and methods for its use. 

Li joined UB in 2020 after receiving his PhD in chemistry from Penn State University and bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of California, Davis. He completed his postdoc work at the University of Toronto.

RCSA Senior Program Director Silvia Ronco noted that this year’s class of Cottrell Scholars started their first tenure-track appointments during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“They have shown remarkable resilience, creativity, and dedication to student learning. We are proud to welcome them to the Cottrell Scholar community.”