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Article

The new generation of fuel cells: fast, furious, and flexible

Trevor Brown April 12, 2017

At ARPA-E's recent Energy Innovation Summit in Washington, DC, Program Director Grigorii Soloveichik presented his vision for the future of transportation: hybrid electric vehicles that combine the advantages of both plug-in battery and fuel cell technologies. This "optimal solution" will require a new generation of fuel cell that is "fast, furious, and flexible." Fast, in terms of start-up / shut-down time. Furious, in terms of energy density. And flexible, in terms of fuel choice - specifically sustainable liquid fuels, like ammonia.

Article

NH3 Energy+: Topical Conference at AIChE Annual Meeting

Stephen H. Crolius April 07, 2017

“Ammonia Energy Arrives on World Stage.” This could have been the headline for today's story about the 2017 NH3 Fuel Conference that will be staged in conjunction with the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). But that would be hyperbolic and would also single out just one step of ammonia energy's rise to global prominence. Nonetheless, the full-day event, officially entitled, “NH3 Energy+: Enabling Optimized, Sustainable Energy and Agriculture,” is unquestionably a milestone on the journey.

Article

Solar-Bio-GMO-Ammonia, powered by the 'Bionic Leaf'

Trevor Brown April 07, 2017

There will be many ways to make ammonia in the future and, regardless of breakthroughs in chemical catalysts and engineering design, genetically modified organisms will play an increasingly important role. At this week's American Chemical Society meeting, Daniel Nocera from Harvard University introduced his new ammonia synthesis technology. It builds on his "artificial leaf" that produces and stores hydrogen using power from sunlight. Nocera's latest innovation is to couple this system with a microbe that naturally contains nitrogenase, the enzyme that fixes atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia. The end result - a robust population of nitrogen fertilizer-emitting microbes - can be delivered to the soil simply by watering the plants.

Article

Power to Ammonia feasibility study

Trevor Brown March 31, 2017

The Institute for Sustainable Process Technology has just published a feasibility study that represents a major step toward commercializing renewable ammonia. It examines the "value chains and business cases to produce CO2-free ammonia," analysing the potential for commercial deployment at three companies with existing sites in The Netherlands: Nuon at Eemshaven, Stedin at Goeree-Overflakkee, and OCI Nitrogen at Geleen. The project is called Power to Ammonia.

Article

New Technology for Generating Hydrogen from Ammonia

Stephen H. Crolius March 30, 2017

On March 21, Gifu University in Japan announced a breakthrough in technology for generating hydrogen from ammonia. A press release from the Gifu Prefectural Association Press Club stated that Professor Shinji Kambara, Director of the Next Generation Research Center within the Environmental Energy Systems Department at the Gifu University Graduate School of Engineering, has developed a "plasma membrane reactor" that is capable of evolving hydrogen with a purity of 99.999 percent from an ammonia feedstock. This surpasses the 99.97 percent purity announced last July by a research group centered at Hiroshima University with a hydrogen generation device based on a different technology.

Article

ACS "Ammonia Economy" Call for Papers Deadline Extended

Stephen H. Crolius March 23, 2017

The deadline for abstracts for the Ammonia Economy session at the American Chemical Society (ACS) National Meeting in August has been extended to April 3. This was reported in an interview yesterday with Martin Owen Jones, Energy Materials Coordinator for the ISIS neutron spallation facility at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the United Kingdom. Jones is the co-organizer of the session along with Michael Mock, a Catalysis Scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in the U.S. The session will be the most prominent treatment of ammonia energy to date at a scientific conference held by an organization of global stature.

Article

Bunker Ammonia: carbon-free liquid fuel for ships

Trevor Brown March 23, 2017

The shipping industry is beginning to evaluate ammonia as a potential "bunker fuel," a carbon-free alternative to the heavy fuel oil (HFO) used in maritime transport. International trade associations are leading the effort to decarbonize the sector, in alignment with targets set by the Paris Climate Agreement. Their immediate challenge is simple to state but hard to solve: "ambitious CO2 reduction objectives will only be achievable with alternative marine fuels which do not yet exist." In the long-term, however researchers recognize that "fuel cell-powered ships are likely to dominate, drawing their energy from fuels such as hydrogen and ammonia."

Article

Terrestrial Energy and the Production of Carbon-Free Ammonia

Stephen H. Crolius March 16, 2017

On January 24, the nuclear energy company Terrestrial Energy USA informed the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission of its plans “to license a small modular, advanced nuclear reactor in the United States.” Many steps later – sometime in the 2020s – the American subsidiary of the Canadian company Terrestrial Energy, Inc., hopes to bring its IMSR technology to market. IMSR stands for integral molten salt reactor. The IMSR stands apart from conventional nuclear technology on several dimensions. On the dimension of operating temperature, the IMSR is hot enough that it can be beneficially integrated with high-temperature industrial processes. According to the company’s research, ammonia production could be a candidate for such integration.

Article

Ammonia for energy storage: a "revolutionary disruption"

Trevor Brown March 16, 2017

A recent opinion piece in The Japan Times predicts a "revolutionary disruption coming to the energy sector," and suggests that using ammonia for energy storage will prove to be "a game-changer at least on the scale of the shale oil and gas revolution."

Article

Progress in Ammonia Combustion Catalysts

Stephen H. Crolius March 08, 2017

On February 14 the Journal of Physical Chemistry published a paper entitled “Local Structures and Catalytic Ammonia Combustion Properties of Copper Oxides and Silver Supported on Aluminum Oxides.” The paper, by Satoshi Hinokuma of Kumamoto University in Kumamoto, Japan and four co-authors, reports on a catalyst system that is well adapted for use in ammonia energy applications.