Site items in: Ammonia-Coal Dual Fuel

IHI First to Reach 20% Ammonia-Coal Co-Firing Milestone
Article

IHI First to Reach 20% Ammonia-Coal Co-Firing Milestone

Stephen H. Crolius April 12, 2018

The Japanese manufacturer IHI Corporation announced on March 28 that it had successfully demonstrated the co-firing of ammonia and coal in a fuel mix composed of 20% ammonia. Ammonia-coal co-firing had previously been demonstrated by Chugoku Electric in a fuel mix composed of just 0.6-0.8% ammonia. IHI says its ultimate goal is to “construct a value chain that connects the production and use of ammonia, using combustion technology of gas turbines and coal-fired boilers, using ammonia as fuel.”

IHI Commits to Ammonia Energy. Big Time.
Article

IHI Commits to Ammonia Energy. Big Time.

Stephen H. Crolius February 08, 2018

During his presentation at the November 2017 NH3 Energy + Topical Conference, Shogo Onishi of IHI Corporation described the progress made by IHI and Tohoku University in limiting NOx emissions from ammonia-fired gas turbines (AGTs).  Regular attendees of the annual NH3 Fuel Conference identify IHI with its work on AGTs since the company also addressed this topic at the 2016 and 2015 events.  However, a scan of published materials shows that AGTs are just one aspect of IHI’s activity in the ammonia energy arena.  In fact, IHI is also looking at the near-term commercialization of technologies in ammonia-coal co-firing in steam boilers and direct ammonia fuel cells.  This level and breadth of commitment to ammonia energy is unique among global capital goods producers.

Green Ammonia Consortium Comes to the Fore in Japan
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Green Ammonia Consortium Comes to the Fore in Japan

Stephen H. Crolius December 21, 2017

On December 8, the Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun ran a story about the future of coal-fired electricity generation in Japan.  The story touched on topics ranging from the plumbing in a Chugoku Electric generating station to the Trump administration’s idiosyncratic approach to environmental diplomacy.  And it contained this sentence: “Ammonia can become a ‘savior’ of coal-fired power.” Clearly an explanation is in order.

Presentation

Detailed Observation of Coal-Ammonia Co-Combustion Processes

Noriaki NakatsukaJunpei FukuiKazuki TainakaHidetaka HigashinoJun HayashiFumiteru Akamatsu

Coal-fired power generation is supplying about 30% of the world’s primary energy. Almost all of coal-fired power plants in Japan employ the pulverized coal combustion method. In the pulverized coal combustion, coal is pulverized into a powder of several tens of microns. This method enables to burn coal effectively because of the large surface to volume ratio. Pulverized coal particles are supplied to the actual boilers with primary air whose Air/Coal ratio (mass flow rate of primary air/mass flow rate of pulverized coal) is set to 2.0. Co-combustion of coal with ammonia has been studied with the aim of reducing…

SIP
Article

SIP "Energy Carriers" video: ammonia turbines, industrial furnaces, fuel cells

Trevor Brown October 13, 2017

To demonstrate the progress of the SIP "Energy Carriers" program, the Japan Science and Technology Agency last week released a video, embedded below, that shows three of its ammonia fuel research and development projects in operation. R&D is often an abstract idea: this video shows what it looks like to generate power from ammonia. As it turns out, fuel cells aren't hugely photogenic. Nonetheless, if a picture is worth a thousand words, this will be a long article.

Industrial demonstrations of ammonia fuel in Japan
Article

Industrial demonstrations of ammonia fuel in Japan

Trevor Brown March 06, 2017

Most of the ammonia energy projects I write about are in the research and development phase but, as I've said before, technology transfer from the academic lab to commercial deployment is moving swiftly - especially in Japan. Last week, Nikkei Asian Review published two articles outlining plans by major engineering and power firms to build utility-scale demonstrations using ammonia as a fuel for electricity generation. Both projects aim to reduce the carbon intensity of the Japanese electrical grid, incrementally but significantly, by displacing a portion of the fossil fuels with ammonia. The first project will generate power using an ammonia-coal mix, while the second will combine ammonia with natural gas.