Cardiff University

Ahead of the international Symposium on Ammonia Energy event next month, we recap R&D presented in the second edition of the Journal on Ammonia Energy:

• An integrated, indirect ammonia solid-oxide cell featuring a heat exchanger and ammonia cracker was modelled, built and tested by the UK’s Science and Technologies Council (STFC).
• The techno-economics of the transportation of energy from Orkney, Scotland to Milford Haven, Wales using ammonia as an energy carrier transported by ship may be the most cost-effective option.
• N₂O and NO_X conversion in ammonia engine exhausts is limited by the presence of oxygen and water, presenting an optimisation challenge for technology developers.
• And an academic-industry joint session on ammonia safety highlighted multiple projects currently underway to tackle the risks associated with the use of ammonia in new commercial sectors.

Learn more about the 3rd Symposium on Ammonia Energy, to be held in Shanghai from 22-26 September this year. The AEA is a proud supporter of the event, which will showcase the latest R&D in ammonia energy. Hear from a program of global researchers, take part in industry collaboration workshops, and get the chance to explore local R&D in a series of site visits.

Organised by a panel of young researchers — and for young researchers — Cardiff University, KAUST and Tohoku University hosted a virtual workshop on ammonia energy. Each group showed their most recent research developments through the two-day event, attracting 50+ participants from the three groups alone. The event included research introductions from the research leaders of each group as well as quizzes, discussion rooms, prizes. Each group selected 6 early career presenters to feature their latest work in the topics of chemistry and microflow reactors, laminar and turbulent flames and applications. Taking advantage of the discussion sessions, this workshop hopes to promote large scale international collaboration and a researcher exchange programme in ammonia energy.

At this early point in the energy transition, many groups are formulating big-picture concepts for the design of a sustainable energy economy, and many more are developing discrete technologies that will be relevant as the transition advances. The multi-stakeholder H2020 European project known as “FLEXibilize combined cycle power plant through Power-to-X solutions using non-CONventional Fuels” (FLEXnCONFU) is coming from a different direction. Its premise is that construction of a bridge to the future should start now, and should be anchored in aspects of the current energy system that are likely to endure over the long-term.

ETN Global’s latest R&D Recommendation was released in October 2018.  ETN stands for European Turbine Network and its technology of interest is the gas turbine.  The 2018 Recommendation is notable because it is the first that includes ammonia on the R&D agenda.

"Ammonia for Power" is an open-access literature review that includes over 300 citations for recent and ongoing research in the use of ammonia in engines, fuel cells, and turbines, as well as providing references to decades of historical case studies and publications. The review, written by a consortium of ammonia energy experts from the University of Cardiff, University of Oxford, the UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council, and Tsinghua University in China, can be found in the November 2018 edition of Progress in Energy and Combustion Science.

The second annual European Conference on Sustainable Ammonia Solutions has announced its full program, spread over two days, May 17 and 18, 2018, at Rotterdam Zoo in the Netherlands. The international cadre of speakers, representing a dozen countries from across Europe as well as the US, Canada, Israel, and Japan, will describe global developments in ammonia energy from the perspectives of industry, academia, and government agencies.

In the last 12 months ... Researchers seeking to fire gas turbines with ammonia made significant strides toward realization of commercial-scale machines in both the U.K. and Japan. This means that electricity generation has become a realistic near-term use-case for ammonia energy.

The ammonia-fueled gas turbine (A-GT) seems destined to become one of the key technologies in the sustainable energy economy of the future.  Siemens AG, for one, features the A-GT in its vision for “Green Ammonia for Energy Storage and Beyond” and the demonstration system that the company is building at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the U.K.  Last month Ian Wilkinson, Siemens’ Programme Manager for the demonstration project, spoke about the project’s progress at the 1st European Power to Ammonia® Conference in Rotterdam in The Netherlands.  Although he devoted a slide to the A-GT, the detailed perspective came from another presentation at the conference.  This one was delivered by Dr. Agustin Valera-Medina, a Senior Lecturer at Cardiff University, one of Siemens’ main green ammonia collaborators.

On September 1st, academic journal Energy & Fuels published a new paper that features research coming out of the UK's Cardiff University and Ireland's University of Limerick. This study demonstrates a "reduced mechanism" for simulating the "robust numerical analyses with detailed chemistry" necessary for the "industrial implementation" of ammonia in gas turbine combustion for "future power generation." Here's the abstract: