A nitrogen fixation process was carried out on an industrial scale in the 1900s called the Birkeland-Eyde Process, and though it is now outdated, hobbyist maker Markus Bindhammer has covered the construction of a smaller, automated version of the process in a YouTube video.
To achieve an atmosphere of almost pure nitrogen, he uses a molecular sieve to introduce oxygen at the spark, and an Arduino Uno board controls the reactor, with silica gel used to dry the air and a mass air flow sensor to measure airflow.
The yield of the process is already very low, and though it produced nitrogen gas, it also produces toxic cyanide and has limited use because of this.
Carbon dioxide could potentially be removed from the mixture to increase the effectiveness of the process, says Bindhammer, who has also looked into how to make liquid nitrogen in the past and used the Haber-Bosch method.
