SalalaH2's consortium partners (OQ, Marubeni, Linde and Dutco) will invest $1 billion bringing their green product export hub to life in Salalah, southern Oman. First announced in October 2021, the project features 1 GW of wind and solar capacity (new build & existing), which will power 400 MW of electrolysers, feeding an existing ammonia production plant owned & operated by OQ.
Monolith and Goodyear Tire & Rubber (the only US-headquartered tire manufacturer) will cooperate on the potential use of carbon black byproduct from its Olive Creek ammonia plant in Hallam, Nebraska. In relevant news, a $1.04 billion, Title XVII loan from the US Department of Energy has secured Monolith's expansion plans for Olive Creek, which will see it become the largest producer of carbon black in the US by 2025.
Uniper and Novatek have signed a long-term supply agreement to transport up to 1.2 million tonnes of blue ammonia annually from Novatek's to-be-built blue ammonia plant in Siberia to Uniper's planned "climate-friendly" hydrogen hub in Wilhelmshaven.
Korean Register has granted AiP for two more ammonia-fueled vessel designs: a 60,000 m3 carrier and a 38,000 m3 ammonia transport/bunkering vessel. Both designs were developed by Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering, with assistance from Hyundai Heavy Industries. Importantly, the new AiPs mark the first milestone achievement for the 'Green Ammonia Shipping/Bunkering Consortium', which was launched in May 2021 with the explicit purpose of developing ammonia-fueled ship designs for approval by Korean Register.
Sumitomo and Oshima Shipbuilding will jointly design & develop an 80,000 m3, ammonia-fueled dry bulk carrier, to hit the water by 2025. In a separate agreement, Sumitomo and Keppel O&M will work together to implement ammonia fuel bunkering in Singapore, with the aim to begin commercial operations in the mid-2020s. Development of a bunkering vessel and a full ammonia value chain (including offshore power generation) is central to the Keppell partnership.
R&D for ammonia-powered locomotives is full steam ahead in Perth, as Fortescue Future Industries moves onto converting two four-stroke, diesel locomotives to run on ammonia fuel. Deployment of an ammonia-powered demonstration locomotive within their current rail operations is planned for later this year. In other FFI news this week, a technical feasibility study has given the thumbs up for FFI to convert Incitec Pivot's existing Gibson Island ammonia production plant to a green ammonia facility, and a new agreement between Australian energy giant AGL and FFI will see the pair turn the current Liddell and Bayswater coal power stations into a huge green hydrogen hub near Newcastle, NSW.
Hive Hydrogen and Linde will lead the development & construction of a $4.6 billion, 780,000 tonnes per year solar ammonia export facility located next to the Port of Ngqura in Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa. A dedicated solar farm (with battery storage) will be built nearby and power hydrogen production via electrolysis, air separation and ammonia production via Haber Bosch. Desalinated seawater will be supplied from off-site. Once produced, the ammonia will be stored for export from the adjacent Ngqura Harbour.
Three new updates this week:
1. A team at Durham University has shown that a massive scale-up of PEM electrolyser manufacturing capability can slash the capital costs of producing electrolyser units by up to 70%.
2. A team from the University of Campinas has proposed more focus on electrolysis of waste and seawater to produce hydrogen, avoiding direct competition between drinking water and hydrogen production.
3. A team from the Australian National University has demonstrated a new pathway forward for hydrogen production directly from sunlight by demonstrating a stable, efficient photocatalyst.
This week we explore four updates in ammonia combustion R&D:
1. A team from the University of Cambridge has shown merchant vessels are the strongest candidates for conversion to run on ammonia powertrains, with cargo capacity losses of 4-9% able to be feasibly offset by operators.
2. Researchers at the University of Minnesota have successfully tested a thermochemical recuperation (TCR) reactor to improve the efficiency of a dual-fuel, diesel-ammonia compression ignition engine by minimising ammonia slip.
3. A global team led by Cardiff University researchers has revealed some of the inner workings of ammonia combustion in gas turbine flames.
4. A global team has produced a cradle-to-gate environmental assessment for ammonia production and ammonia-based electricity generation, suggesting that renewable and nuclear ammonia have a significant role to play in decarbonising the power sector.
We look at four new developments this week:
1. A team from DTU Energy and the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics have uncovered a new class of alternative catalysts for mild condition ammonia synthesis. The ternary ruthenium complex hydrides Li4RuH6 and Ba2RuH6 avoid the energy-intensive pathway of nitrogen dissociation in a "synergistic" manner.
2. A team from the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials reported a highly selective (95%) plasma ammonia synthesis method.
3. A team from Delft University of Technology has presented an present an "unconventional electrochemical design" that physically separates hydrogen and dinitrogen activation sites.
4. A team at the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research has demonstrated a new mechanochemical ammonia synthesis system that operates at room temperature and pressures as low as 1 bar.