silicon was pretreated by heating under argon for 12 hours at 100 u00b0 c deionized tap water was employed as the reducing agent and carrier liquid the nitrogen was dispersed through a sintered disc into 25 milliliters of water carrying approximately 0 25 grams of the subdivided silicon dispersed therein bubbling of the nitrogen through this aqueous silicon suspension provided adequate mixing the nitrogen flow rate was 60 cubic centimeters per minute at 1 atmosphere the aqueous silicon suspension was contained in a pyrex reaction cell and a 150 watt xenon lamp with quartz lenses was employed approximately 30 centimeters from the pyrex reaction cell to supply the incident light required for operation of the process effluent gas from the reactor was passed through two traps containing small amounts of water and immersed in common ice the contents of the reactor and the traps were analyzed after each run for ammonia the ammonia content was determined spectrophotometrically using nessler 39 s reagent both semiconductor grade silicon and silicon that is not semiconductor grade were employed as set forth in table i hereinafter the reaction time and temperature for all runs was approximately 30 u00b0 c and six hours table i______________________________________.