Hara & Ishikawa Lab. is a group specializing in materials, surfaces, chemistry and catalysis

NEWS

26/7/2

New!! Featured on Nationwide TV During Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's Visit to India

On July 1, I had the pleasure of being interviewed about green ammonia for TV Asahi's nationwide news program, Yoko Kinoshita's Wide! Scramble.

It was a truly enjoyable experience. I was especially impressed by the interview team's thorough preparation and insightful questions, which led to a stimulating and engaging discussion.

I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to everyone involved in the interview for making the experience both enjoyable and memorable.

April 7, 26

It's already public that our research has been selected as a Grant-in-Aid for Specially Promoted Research （特別推進研究）in The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). The assignment number is a quadruple-zero number "26H00003". If you don't understand what the Grant-in-Aid means, ask the AI, "What is 特別推進研究 in JSPS?"
"Innovative Catalyst Design by Controlling Surface States of Base-Metal Mesoscale Particles"

Jan. 28, 26

We have successfully developed a next-generation ammonia synthesis catalyst that surpasses all previous systems.

Our true competitor has always been the catalysts we ourselves developed in the past. One year ago, we announced an “Inverse Iron catalyst” that far exceeded the performance of what had been considered the best ammonia synthesis catalyst at the time. We subsequently developed an improved version, the “Improved Inverse Iron”, which outperformed even that system. Now, we have succeeded in creating a “new Inverse Iron” that goes beyond all of them.
However, as can be seen from the figure, the incremental performance gains achieved with each new development stage have begun to diminish. Overcoming this challenge requires a genuine paradigm shift rather than a simple extension of existing approaches. Recent studies indicate that the concept of “unlocked base metals” may provide the key to enabling this paradigm shift.
Please look forward to our next announcement.

Dec. 15, 25

It has long been known that transition metals such as iron, cobalt, and ruthenium act as catalysts for ammonia synthesis. In our recent study, we directly compared the intrinsic properties of these metals and demonstrated, for the first time with clarity, that iron possesses overwhelmingly high activity for ammonia synthesis.
Remarkably, this conclusion is perfectly consistent with the following three sources:
(1)Middle-school textbooks (ionization tendency)
(2)State-of-the-art AI predictions
(3)Our accumulated experimental data and new findings
In other words, school education, artificial intelligence, and cutting-edge research all converge on the same answer: iron is the most capable metal for producing ammonia. Details are provided in the following “A Little Memo.”

Oct. 14, 25

We successfully measured the vibrational spectrum of nitrogen molecules (N₂) adsorbed on iron, which had never been observed before. The results suggest that iron may surpass other metals in its ability to dissociate nitrogen molecules and synthesize ammonia. The figure shows that the N₂ vibration band appears at 2200 cm⁻¹ when adsorbed on ruthenium (Ru). The vibrational frequency is inversely proportional to the bond length, that is, to the bond strength. In contrast, N₂ adsorbed on pure iron exhibits a much lower frequency at 2040 cm⁻¹ compared to that on ruthenium. This indicates that iron can more easily dissociate nitrogen molecules into nitrogen atoms than ruthenium and therefore possesses a much higher potential for ammonia synthesis.These findings may provide a key to understanding why the Inverse catalyst, composed of iron, exhibits exceptionally high ammonia synthesis activity that has never been achieved before.

Sep. 26, 25

Ammon Fields Inc. simultaneously received two awards at the Ecotech Grand Prix 2025 for ammonia production using our Inverse Catalyst produced from "rust". The reasons for the awards are as follows:
(1) The Ieverse Catalyst demonstrated that the truly important metric in practical ammonia production is the “synthesis rate per catalyst volume,” and that the commonly used index “synthesis rate per catalyst weight” has no practical significance.
(2) In terms of actual ammonia productivity, while all catalysts developed to date have fallen short of the industrial catalyst designed more than a century ago, the Reverse Catalyst has been demonstrated to deliver over three times the productivity.

Original paper of Inverse Catalyst: https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202410313

Video with English subtitles: see above.

Sep. 18, 25

I commend the efforts of Mr. Numata, Ms. Shimizu, and Mr. Suzuki for their oral presentations at the 136th Catalysis Conference. Notably, this conference marked the first opportunity to present, in an oral session, our unprecedented high-performance ammonia synthesis catalyst, the “Inverse catalyst”. Although this catalyst has already been published in a paper, we received numerous comments such as “unbelievable.” To us, this is a badge of honor.

Aug. 25, 25

Special thanks to Ruriko Nekojima (https://x.com/ruriko_neko)!! I learned today that the number of views to our lab's website skyrocketed in June. This is thanks to the buzz caused by a post made by Nekojima around June 6th. Thank you to Nekojima.

Aug. 23, 25

Aisha Faisal, an international student from Imperial College London, has returned to Japan. Despite being a young third-year undergraduate student, she has succeeded in the difficult task of measuring the infrared spectrum of nitrogen molecules adsorbed on a catalyst. This is a result that can be published in an international paper. Congratulations to Faisal

Aug. 20, 25

Tomoyasu Kanno (M2, Inorganic Materials) was selected as the course representative at the autumn graduation ceremony! His research results and presentation on the "phenol to aniline" catalyst he created were highly praised. Congratulations!