A group of researchers in The University of Tokyo posted to and proposes on Nature, volume 568, pages 536- 540 (2019), published on 24 Aril, 2019, that a samarium compound mixed with water and combined with a molybdenum catalyst can promote ammonia synthesis from dinitrogen under ambient conditions.
Reactions via direct nitrogen cleavage pathway on the molybdenum-catalysed ammonia production with samarium diiodide and alcohols or water are given as follws.
(Source Extended Data Fig. 5/Nature)
See also comments on this article by Máté J. Bezdek et.al. They said, ultimately, "The method reported has considerable operational challenges that currently make it impractical for synthesizing ammonia: SmI2 is used in large quantities, which generates a lot of waste; separating ammonia from aqueous solutions is energetically costly; and a chemical overpotential of about 140 kcal/mol remains. Nevertheless, authors’ work creates a playground in which chemists can explore methods for ammonia synthesis. Future research should focus on finding alternatives to SmI2, based on metals that are more abundant than samarium, to promote coordination-induced bond weakening, enable N–H bond formation and lower the energetic costs of making ammonia from air and water.