How many ATP molecules are consumed in the overall reaction for biological nitrogen fixation to produce two molecules of ammonium ion?
Explanation
Biological nitrogen fixation is an energetically expensive process. The nitrogenase complex requires the hydrolysis of 16 molecules of ATP to overcome the high activation energy of breaking the N-N triple bond and to drive the transfer of the 8 electrons needed to reduce one molecule of N2 to two molecules of NH4+.
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