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Presentation

Optimizing Absorptive Separation for Intensification of Ammonia Production

Bosong Lin Fouzia Nowrin Mahdi Malmali

High pressure requirements of Haber-Bosch process imposes substantial operating (e.g., compression) and capital (compressor cost, advanced costly alloys, thick reactor casing, etc.) expenses in the ammonia production. Cost considerations force ammonia producers to take advantage of the economy of scale to drive down the manufacture cost, while small and energy-efficient processes that can be powered with off-grid renewable energy are required for ammonia-mediated hydrogen economy. Small-scale reaction-absorption process is proposed to be a viable technology to reduce the operating pressure requirements of Haber-Bosch process.1–4 Here, we present an overview of our efforts to further intensify ammonia production via reaction-absorption process.…

Article

Electrified Methane Reforming Could Reduce Ammonia's CO2 Footprint

Kevin Rouwenhorst August 15, 2019

A May 2019 paper published in Science reports on a technological advance that may have significant implications for ammonia production. The paper, Electrified methane reforming: A compact approach to greener industrial hydrogen production, presents a method for providing the heat required for steam methane reforming from renewable electricity instead of natural gas. The carbon intensity of ammonia production could thereby be reduced by about 30%. And, last month, Haldor Topsøe announced that it plans to build a demonstration plant in Denmark that will produce “CO2-neutral methanol from biogas using eSMR technology.” The plant is expected to be “fully operational in the beginning of 2022.”

Article

The global quest to decarbonize ammonia production

Trevor Brown June 20, 2019

NEWS BRIEF: The industrial process for ammonia production is increasingly being recognized as a target for decarbonization - by researchers, investors, regulators, and the producers themselves. Demonstrating this shift in awareness, Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN), one of the flagship publications of the American Chemical Society (ACS), this week published an in-depth review of global research and development efforts and demonstration plants for sustainable ammonia synthesis. Its review is all-encompassing, from near-term feasible renewable Haber-Bosch plants, to long-term research areas of electrochemistry, photocatalysis, and bioengineering.

Article

Ammonia plant revamp to decarbonize: Yara Sluiskil

Trevor Brown February 01, 2019

Last year, Yara Sluiskil, in the Netherlands, upgraded its existing ammonia plant by introducing a hydrogen pipeline connection, thereby reducing its reliance on fossil fuels. The pipeline was commissioned in October 2018 and now "ensures the efficient and safe transport of hydrogen," which was previously a waste-product at Dow's nearby ethylene cracker. Already, the project "delivers a CO2 saving of 10,000 tons" and a decrease in energy consumption of "0.15 petajoules (PJ) per year." This is, perhaps, the first ammonia plant decarbonization revamp, and it shows that it is both possible and affordable to reduce emissions from existing ammonia plants today.

Presentation

Microwave Catalysis for Ammonia Synthesis Under Mild Reaction Conditions

Jianli Hu Hanjing Tian Yan Luo Xinwei Bai Dushyant Shekhawat Christina Wildfire Victor Abdelsayed Michael J. Spencer Robert A. Dagle Stephen Davidson Albert E. Stiegman

A scalable, cost-effective catalytic process of ammonia synthesis is developed by using microwave excitation under mild reaction conditions. In this research project funded by DOE ARPA-E, our interdisciplinary team of WVU, NETL, PNNL, FSU and two industrial partners have demonstrated that ammonia synthesis can be carried out at 200-300 °C and ambient pressure. This transformational process integrates system elements of electromagnetic sensitive catalysts and microwave reactor design. Taking advantages of state-of-the art non-equilibrium microwave plasma technology, catalytic ammonia synthesis undergoes a new reaction pathway where the barrier for the initial dissociation of the dinitrogen is decoupled from the bonding energy…

Presentation

Creating a Redox Materials Database for Solar-Thermochemical Air Separation and Fuels Production

Josua Vieten Dorottya Guban Martin Roeb Christian Sattler Patrick Huck Matthew Horton Kristin Persson Brendan Bulfin

Converting heat from renewable sources into other forms of energy is considered an essential factor in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. For instance, high temperatures can be reached using concentrated solar power (CSP), and the thus-captured energy can be converted into so-called solar fuels via thermochemical processes. These consist of the partial reduction of a redox material, usually a metal oxide, at high temperatures following the exothermic re-oxidation of this material at a lower temperature level using steam or CO2, which are thus converted into hydrogen or carbon monoxide, respectively. These two gases can be combined to generate syngas…

Presentation

Ammonia Synthesis Via Radiofrequency Plasma Catalysis

Javishk Shah Maria Carreon Weizong Wang Annemie Bogaerts

Introduction: In 1909, a compound named Ammonia was discovered. Through the 20th century, the immense potential of this chemical was exploited by using in almost every product, from process industry for fertilizer and chemical production to every use in cosmetics, household cleaners and medicines. Recently, fuel cells operating on liquid ammonia as working fluid have been developed on research scale. Despite of using 1-2% of total energy production for the synthesis of this compound, no significant changes have been made to the process since the first Haber-Bosch process plant has been setup. Plasma catalysis is the use of plasma and…

Presentation

Importance of Reaction Mechanism Involved in Design of the Catalyst and the Reactor for Future Ammonia Synthesis

Ken-ichi Aika

The ammonia synthesis reaction is considered to involve several elementary steps [1]: N2 + 2＊ → 2N(a) (1) H2 + 2＊ → 2H(a) (2) N(a) + H(a) → NH(a) + ＊ (3) NH(a) + H(a) → NH2 (a) + ＊ (4) NH2 (a) + H(a) → NH3(a) + ＊ (5) NH3(a) → NH3 + ＊ (6) Here, the symbol ＊ indicates empty sites. For most metal catalysts, the dissociative adsorption of dinitrogen (step 1) is the rate-determining step, and all the other steps and its reverse step (from 2 to 6) are fast enough to be almost in equilibrium for…

Article

Yara and BASF open their brand-new, world-scale plant, producing low-carbon ammonia

Trevor Brown April 27, 2018

The newest ammonia plant on the planet has opened in Freeport, Texas. A joint venture between Yara and BASF, this world-scale ammonia plant uses no fossil fuel feedstock. Instead, it will produce 750,000 metric tons of ammonia per year using hydrogen and nitrogen delivered directly by pipeline. The plant's hydrogen contract is structured so that the primary supply is byproduct hydrogen, rather than hydrogen produced from fossil fuels, and therefore the Freeport plant can claim that its ammonia has a significantly reduced carbon footprint. This new ammonia plant demonstrates three truths. First, low-carbon merchant ammonia is available for purchase in industrial quantities today: this is not just technically feasible but also economically competitive. Second, carbon intensity is measured in shades of grey, not black and white. Ammonia is not necessarily carbon-free or carbon-full, but it has a carbon intensity that can quantified and, in a carbon-constrained economy, less carbon content equates to higher premium pricing. Third, the ammonia industry must improve its carbon footprinting before it can hope to be rewarded for producing green ammonia.

Article

Joyn Bio: microbial engineering for sustainable nitrogen

Trevor Brown April 12, 2018

Six months ago, in September 2017, I reported a $100 million joint venture announcement between Bayer and Ginkgo Bioworks that aimed to engineer nitrogen-fixing microbes, which could be put into seed coatings and provide nutrients to non-legume crops. Now, the joint venture has been named, and Joyn Bio is staffing up. For the ammonia industry, this represents potential demand destruction at a significant scale in the coming decades.