Reaction Engines, IP Group, and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) launched a new joint venture this week at COP26 in Glasgow. The group will design and commercialise lightweight, modular ammonia cracking reactors to enable the use of ammonia in hard-to-decarbonise sectors, particularly aviation, shipping and off-grid power generation applications. The design will feature Reaction Engines’ heat exchanger technology developed for its SABRE™ air-breathing rocket engine. In this setup, exhaust heat is utilised to partially crack ammonia back into a fuel blend that "mimics" jet fuel. STFC will lead development of the cracking catalyst, with funding to be provided by IP Group.
United Kingdom
Barents Blue ammonia plant gains new partners, set to triple in size
This week Horisont Energi, Equinor and Vår Energi entered into a new cooperation agreement for development of the Barents Blue facility, and also revealed the project is set to triple in size from 1 million tonnes per year blue ammonia to 3 million.
New materials for cracking catalysts
Among the many challenges for cracking researchers is their choice of material to build their catalysts from. There is hope that cheaper, more readily-available materials will replace the Ruthenium-based catalysts that have dominated the field up to this point. This week two new pieces of research suggest a way forwards using alkali metal-based materials: Lithium and Calcium.
UK publishes national Hydrogen Strategy
The UK government has launched its vision for a society-wide hydrogen economy, with the first phase to entail 5 GW of low-carbon hydrogen production by 2030. Of huge interest to our readers here at Ammonia Energy are the explicit references in the report to the important future role of ammonia as: i) a maritime fuel, ii) a peaking power fuel for gas turbines, and iii) an export vector.
The Ammonia Academic Wrap: a new breakthrough for eNRR research and more
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.
The Ammonia Wrap: no major obstacles for NoGAPS success and more
Welcome to the Ammonia Wrap: a summary of all the latest announcements, news items and publications about ammonia energy. This week: latest report from NoGAPS, Viking Energy project takes another step, more collaborations for Yara, thyssenkrupp to invest in cracking R&D, investment in clean hydrogen technology in the USA, world-first visualisation of ammonia combustion in a spark-ignition engine and our numbers of the week.