Franck Natali, Using Physics to Make Clean Fertilizer (Graphic Biography)
FRANCK NATALIMy name is Franck Natali. I’m an Associate Professor of Physics at the Victoria University of Wellington, and the co-founder of Liquium. I do science aimed at solving real problemsfor society, but i never thought i was going to be a physicist.Today, i do a lot of teaching, But i also do a lot of thinking and experimenting. We aren’t just sitting at a desk solving equations, we’re working with others in a lab– having a lot of fun trying new things.I was the first person in my family to go to university (University of Bordeaux). When i was younger, i played rugby, and i discovered that i loved all that teamwork and competition. Last year, i had a spinal cord stroke, and i was half paralyzed and told i would never walk again. But i said, “not only will i walk, i WILL run”. Often,i’m told it is too difficult to fight climate change. It took me quite a while to find an answer. And one of the new things we’re trying to do is change the way we make ammonia.We can’t keep going with this production level, since CO2 is a terrible greenhouse gas. But at the same time, we need ammonia, because ammonia is a key component in the production offertilizers.Here’s something completely insane about ammonia – for each ton of ammonia produced, there are three tons of CO2 produced. So, you have adilemma: you want to cut CO2 emissions but you also want to feed people. What to do? We need to fixour process so making fertilizers doesn’t produce so much CO2. and that process creates CO2. If we can produce ammonia with less pressure and LOWER temperature the process will emit less CO2. Nitrogen isn’t a problem –we just take it from the air. But Currently,the Hydrogen we use comes from fossil fuels, which we burn, producing carbon. We are also trying to change how we get some of the ingredients in ammonia. Ammonia is produced from Nitrogen and Hydrogen.The way we make ammonia right now requires high temperature and high pressure.Without fertilizers, millions of people won’t have food to eat. We, as a group ofscientists, are developing a process to take hydrogen from water instead, which would be much cleaner.FRANCK NATALIP r o f e s s o r a n d S c i e n t i s tI believe we can fight climate change– if we bring together the right people, the righttechnologies, enough effort. We shouldn’t get up in the morning and say, “this is difficult”. We should just say “we will do it”.Text by: Trevor Getz Art by: Jorell Rivera