A new way to produce ammonia

[begreen]

This is a pretty dry topic, until one looks at the impacts of ammonia manufacture on the climate. This could be a game changer. It is even more important if the world migrates more toward using ammonia as a refrigerant.

Green ammonia electrolysis breakthrough could finally kill Haber-Bosch

Scientists at Australia's Monash University claim to have made a critical breakthrough in green ammonia production that could displace the extremely dirty Haber-Bosch process, with the potential to eliminate nearly two percent of global greenhouse emissions.

newatlas.com

The science:

Science | AAAS

www.science.org

 

[stoveliker]

They have in mind to use this (ammonia, liquid) to replace hydrogen (pressurized) for renewable hydrogen fuel transportation. Which I think is an avenue worth exploring.

 

[EbS-P]

The price of liquid ammonia fertilizer saw an almost 2-300% increase over the pandemic. Wonder what the production cost is?

 

[ABMax24]

What's interesting about technologies like these is how they could be integrated into a renewable electricity grid. If a large scale ammonia plant like this could be ramped up and down rapidly it could very effectively utilize renewable energy, it could ramp up in times of surplus and ramp down in times of scarcity. A facility like this could help reduce the need for batteries as well as, who knows, maybe the process could be reversed to produce electricity.

There are plans to build a combination methanol/ammonia plant here, but still utilizing natural gas as the feedstock, although the plan is to utilize carbon capture to store the CO2 in old natural gas producing zones underground. There is also another methanol plant to be built, also to utilize carbon capture.

It seems investors are betting big on methanol and ammonia becoming fuels for marine shipping.

 

[woodgeek]

This is SUPER COOL.

 

[SpaceBus]

What's interesting about technologies like these is how they could be integrated into a renewable electricity grid. If a large scale ammonia plant like this could be ramped up and down rapidly it could very effectively utilize renewable energy, it could ramp up in times of surplus and ramp down in times of scarcity. A facility like this could help reduce the need for batteries as well as, who knows, maybe the process could be reversed to produce electricity.

There are plans to build a combination methanol/ammonia plant here, but still utilizing natural gas as the feedstock, although the plan is to utilize carbon capture to store the CO2 in old natural gas producing zones underground. There is also another methanol plant to be built, also to utilize carbon capture.

It seems investors are betting big on methanol and ammonia becoming fuels for marine shipping.

I think liquid and gas hydrocarbon fuels will remain in place for the foreseeable future. There are probably enzymes and processes that could convert the captured carbon, produced ammonia, and added water into some sort of hydrocarbon fuel base stock. The carbon could be re-used almost indefinitely and the fuel should emit very little in the way of harmful contaminants, mainly just NOx as the CO2 emissions would be captured again. There should also be some water produced by burning such a fuel.

 

[woodgeek]

What's interesting about technologies like these is how they could be integrated into a renewable electricity grid. If a large scale ammonia plant like this could be ramped up and down rapidly it could very effectively utilize renewable energy, it could ramp up in times of surplus and ramp down in times of scarcity. A facility like this could help reduce the need for batteries as well as, who knows, maybe the process could be reversed to produce electricity.

There are plans to build a combination methanol/ammonia plant here, but still utilizing natural gas as the feedstock, although the plan is to utilize carbon capture to store the CO2 in old natural gas producing zones underground. There is also another methanol plant to be built, also to utilize carbon capture.

It seems investors are betting big on methanol and ammonia becoming fuels for marine shipping.

Well said. Part of the point of 'stupid cheap renewable electricity' is that you want to overbuild capacity (to reduce intermittency and daily/seasonal storage needs) and then curtail the over-production. The corollary is that there will soon be a BUNCH of free electricity to be had in the world, that is a huge opportunity.

And ofc, the problem with H2 is storage. Ammonia is super storable, and leaks get washed out of the atmosphere fast due to its aqueous chemistry. I need to read more about its property as a fuel....

I especially liked the 'scalability' of this electrolytic tech... means you could build a little ammonia plant anywhere, or adjacent to a solar/wind farm.

 

[woodgeek]

OK, did a little reading on Ammonia combustion...

PDF presentation: https://www.ammoniaenergy.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/AEA-_Harris_-Direct-use-of-ammonia.pdf
Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/nilsro...ble-fuel-option-for-shipping/?sh=62c2d75c7c00

Looks like Ammonia is sketchy in ICE engines due to slow combustion, but works at high and low throttle. One concept is to run the ammonia over a catalyst to crack it partially (like 10% or so) back to H2 and N2 right before the engine... this ammonia/H2 mixture has excellent properties as an ICE fuel. Look ma, no carbon!

Or one can modify the engine with fancy injectors to run on NH3 alone.

As @SpaceBus mentioned, NOx can be produced, and unburnt NH3 is also an exhaust issue. Both would need to be controlled by careful combustion regulation/control and/or exhaust processing (like Diesel).

All together, looks like it will work, but only work well at a fixed throttle, and maybe large scale (?). This is not an issue for hybrid drive trains. So it could work well as a shipping fuel.

 

[ABMax24]

I think liquid and gas hydrocarbon fuels will remain in place for the foreseeable future. There are probably enzymes and processes that could convert the captured carbon, produced ammonia, and added water into some sort of hydrocarbon fuel base stock. The carbon could be re-used almost indefinitely and the fuel should emit very little in the way of harmful contaminants, mainly just NOx as the CO2 emissions would be captured again. There should also be some water produced by burning such a fuel.

I agree, there's many things that can be electrified, but some are going to be very difficult, commercial shipping and air travel being probably the hardest.

What intrigues me about ammonia and methanol is the possibility to remove an ICE and replace it with a fuel cell. Properly done this should remove almost all of the by-products associated with ICE engine exhaust.

 

[SpaceBus]

OK, did a little reading on Ammonia combustion...

PDF presentation: https://www.ammoniaenergy.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/AEA-_Harris_-Direct-use-of-ammonia.pdf
Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/nilsro...ble-fuel-option-for-shipping/?sh=62c2d75c7c00

Looks like Ammonia is sketchy in ICE engines due to slow combustion, but works at high and low throttle. One concept is to run the ammonia over a catalyst to crack it partially (like 10% or so) back to H2 and N2 right before the engine... this ammonia/H2 mixture has excellent properties as an ICE fuel. Look ma, no carbon!

Or one can modify the engine with fancy injectors to run on NH3 alone.

As @SpaceBus mentioned, NOx can be produced, and unburnt NH3 is also an exhaust issue. Both would need to be controlled by careful combustion regulation/control and/or exhaust processing (like Diesel).

All together, looks like it will work, but only work well at a fixed throttle, and maybe large scale (?). This is not an issue for hybrid drive trains. So it could work well as a shipping fuel.

Could even be scaled to range extenders for passenger cars, probably in a fixed throttle Mazda style rotary engine.

I think a more likely scenario is metabolizing the NH3, CO, and H2O into free nitrogen and a very clean burning hydrocarbon fuel that converts into CO and H2O when burned, the CO could easily be captured with currently available carbon capture technology. Clearly the answer is to get the nitrogen out of the fuel to start with, then NOx will be reduced, but not eliminated without getting the nitrogen out of the intake air. I can't see that being possible outside of large scale applications that can actually eliminate the "bad stuff" out of the intake air. Maybe even better would be a "battery" that can break down the hydrocarbon fuel into energy like plants do with enzymes and electron transport chains.

Either way, I can't see our world getting away from hydrocarbon fuels anytime soon, they are simply the easiest way to harvest energy. If the NOx problem can be solved without too much inconvenience combustion engines may never go away, even if they are used for range extenders, aircraft, etc.

 

[SpaceBus]

I agree, there's many things that can be electrified, but some are going to be very difficult, commercial shipping and air travel being probably the hardest.

What intrigues me about ammonia and methanol is the possibility to remove an ICE and replace it with a fuel cell. Properly done this should remove almost all of the by-products associated with ICE engine exhaust.

You got to the fuel cell idea just before I posted.

 

[DBoon]

A great relevant article from a couple of years back

A Retired JPL Engineer’s Journey: From Space Probes to Carbon-Neutral Farming

Jay Schmuecker’s Iowa farm uses solar power to generate fuel and fertilizer on-site

spectrum.ieee.org