Atmonia: novel technology for ammonia production at ambient conditions

Click to enlarge. Atmonia is developing a new system for electrolytic ammonia production from air and water. Source: Atmonia.

Founded in 2016, Icelandic start-up Atmonia is developing a novel N2 (nitrogen) electrolyser technology with the aim of achieving one-step electrochemical ammonia synthesis from air, water and electricity using its proprietary precious metal-free catalyst. The company reached an important milestone last month when it achieved laboratory-scale production of ammonia via this new system. The technology originated from co-founder Prof. Egill Skúlason’s chemical engineering research project at the University of Iceland.

When coupled with renewable energy, the Atmonia system produces “carbon neutral” ammonia. Operating at ambient temperature and pressure, the system will be “fast and economical” to switch on or off, making it compatible with intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. Further, the end goal – a modular commercial unit with a 150 tons-per-year production capacity – will enable both decentralised production and large-scale projects through stacking.

The experimental work was supported by VERGE, a Horizon Europe project that began in November 2022 with the aim of conducting proof-of-concept for the nitrogen electrolyser project. Atmonia’s work has also been supported by the Technology Development Fund and the Research Fund of Iceland.

This system that we have is a small version of the system that we plan to eventually scale up. This summer, when we had improved all the components, we ran an experiment with isotope labelling that gives us the opportunity to distinguish between ammonia that is produced when the catalyst breaks down and ammonia that is produced when nitrogen gas is split. Of course, we want to produce ammonia from nitrogen gas, not from a catalyst. This experiment showed that in this improved system, we are producing ammonia from nitrogen gas using a reaction called the “Mars-van Krevelen” reaction.

This result allows us to move on to the next steps, where we first plan to optimize the energy efficiency of the system and then we plan to scale up. We anticipate it will take about five years to be able to produce the first full-scale system, but that size should be able to produce about 150 tons of ammonia per year.

Helga Dögg Flosadóttir, CEO and Co-founder of Atmonia, quoted in “Ammoníak framleitt úr vatni og lofti með rafmagni”, Baendabaldid, 24 October 2025