This week: a new breakthrough for eNRR research, ammonia production from food waste and brown-water, the huge potential of green ammonia production from hybrid solar-wind across the globe, predicted cost dynamics of electrolyser technology, and hydrogen production using selective ion membranes.
Based on recent press reports, ammonia has a new friend: methanol. With the two upstart fuels being mentioned together with increasing frequency, they seem poised to develop on parallel paths as each seeks market applications where it can become a mainstay solution.
Last month brought news of "the world’s first ammonia ready vessel.” According to an American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) press release, the vessel, currently under construction in China, will comply “with the ABS Ammonia Ready Level 1 requirements, indicating it is designed to be converted to run on ammonia in the future.” When completed, the 274-meter ship (and possibly two others of identical design) will join the fleet of Avin International.
This month, a team of researchers from Fuzhou University in Fujian, China, published a new paper in the journal Sustainable Energy & Fuels that provides a “Techno-economic analysis and comprehensive optimization of an on-site hydrogen refuelling station system using ammonia.” The study concludes that “the H2 production cost of the NH3-fed on-site hydrogen refuelling station was at least 15% lower than other carbon-free routes (such as electrolysis, solar thermolysis, photo-electrolysis, etc.), and comparable to that of a methane steam reforming system with carbon capture and storage.”
