As fledgling technology goes, quantum computing sounds as science fiction as it gets. Most people have likely not even heard about it, let alone think it can be used for anything immediately useful.

But if IBM fulfills a very bold promise it made in September, crop producers will see the fruits of this technology in a very tangible way within the next five years.

By using quantum computing and artificial intelligence (AI) to speed up the process, IBM researchers are confident they can revolutionize the production of nitrogen fertilizer.

Basically, for every ton of fertilizer produced, we consume one ton of fossil fuel, Teo Laino, manager of IBM Research Zurich, said in an email interview.

We are working to identify and develop materials that will make the conversion of nitrogen into fertilizers happen in a more environmental and sustainable way.

If successful, this could mean lower nutrient costs for producers and given growing concerns about greenhouse gases produce a major PR win for the ag industry, as well.

IBMs goal is to improve the Haber-Bosch process (which turns nitrogen gas into nitrates) in a very fundamental way. This process, created by two German chemists more than a century ago, is both one of the greatest advances in agriculture and one of its biggest challenges.

Fertilizers have helped to sustain two times more people on Earth (than otherwise), said Laino.

(But) this process is consuming nearly two to three per cent of the global energy production on a yearly basis.

The impact of the current process has brought the population to the verge of a sustainability crisis.

This is what prompted the global technology giant to pledge that it would use its quantum computing and AI capability to fundamentally improve the Haber-Bosch process.

We will need to discover new processes that have a greater respect for the environment and the planet, he said. This will also have benefits for the primary producers less impact to the environment means less disaster events related to climate.

This effort to find a much less energy-intensive way to make fertilizer in five years is tremendously exciting, said University of Manitoba soil scientist Mario Tenuta, one of the countrys leading experts on fertilizer use and the senior Canada research chair in 4R nutrient management.

(IBM is) not thinking about making a widget its thinking about making something thats going to change the structure of our industrial processes and get us closer to where we need to go in terms of living and sustaining our presence here, he said.

IBMs specific goal is to find a new catalyst for the Haber-Bosch process a seemingly small thing but one with huge implications. (A catalyst is a substance that makes a chemical reaction proceed much more quickly without being consumed in the reaction.)

Making nitrogen fertilizer requires, not surprisingly, nitrogen. Theres plenty out there (it makes up 78 per cent of the air we breathe), but plants can only use it in its fixed form. In nature, that means it must be harvested from the atmosphere by micro-organisms to form ammonia, nitrites and nitrates which help plants grow.

IBMs bid to greatly reduce the amount of energy needed to make fertilizer would have a huge advance for agriculture, says Mario Tenuta, a University of Manitoba soil scientist and one of the countrys top experts on fertilizer use.photo: Supplied

Legumes can do this, but to do it on an industrial scale with the Haber-Bosch process requires very high temperatures, and hence lots of energy. For decades, researchers have tried to engineer a better catalyst that would reduce the energy needed to produce ammonia through the Haber-Bosch process, but identifying one has been problematic. There are virtually endless combinations of materials to sort through and processing all of them has proven itself beyond the capacity of both humans and traditional computers.

Thats where quantum computing comes in.

Quantum computers are exponentially faster than even the largest mainframe computers. The simplest explanation is instead of encoding information in bits that exist in a binary state of either 1 or 0, they use qubits that exist in states of both 1 and 0 simultaneously. Youd probably need a PhD in quantum physics to understand much more, but it is this state of superposition that makes quantum computing so fast.

IBM researchers plan to extract the materials quantum computers identify as possible catalysts and then with the help of AI construct, test and validate predictive models that could make a more energy-efficient fertilizer production process possible.

We use an entire ecosystem of technologies, from AI to tackle sustainable goal challenges to quantum computing, which isan important part of accelerating the scientific discovery process, said Laino. We currently use quantum computing to address several important chemical challenges in these processes.

Meanwhile, we study how to solve more holistic problems while making progress on a road map that is bringing us closer to running bigger solutions on larger quantum computing hardware.

If all is successful, the next step would be to scale the process.

The company foresees the use of fuel cells that would work like a reverse battery. Basically, instead of storing energy, fuel cells would use energy from renewable sources to combine nitrogen from the atmosphere and hydrogen from water to produce ammonia. The catalytic molecules identified by the technology would be used to lower the amount of energy needed to sustain the nitrogen fixation process.

While this would be a good thing overall, what would it actually mean for crop farmers trying to keep their input costs down?

Basic economics dictate that a less energy-intensive process for making fertilizer should mean savings for fertilizer companies (less energy equals less cost), with those savings theoretically passed on to the producer.

However, there are still some unknown factors at play, particularly when it comes to the kind of energy that will fuel fertilizer production, said Tenuta.

With IBMs focus on using renewables such as solar and hydro as fuel for the production process, how much farmers would wind up paying for the end product is anyones guess, he said.

I am personally expecting that by 2050 our reliance on fossil fuels as an energy source is going to be in the minoritycompared to renewables, he said. You just dont know what the cost of those renewables is going to be down the road.

That said, Tenuta believes the fact that IBM is looking for this catalyst using in-reach technology is itself remarkable.

And who knows where that might lead, he said, adding it might even allow fertilizer to be made on farms.

Maybe a really good catalyst will ensure there is no difference between a factory and a farmers yard, said Tenuta. You would still think that (production) would be more efficient in a big factory than making it at a small scale, but who knows?

Read more here:
A fertilizer revolution is on the horizon - Alberta Express