Site items in: Cracking Ammonia

Ammonia as a liquid for the future of aviation
Presentation

Zero-emission aviation initiatives have mainly focused on using hydrogen or drop-in biofuels and sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) to replace fossil-based jet fuels to achieve near-term reductions in carbon emissions with minimal impacts on the global aircraft fleet and supporting infrastructure. Despite significant advances in the production of such fuels, scaling up manufacturing capability to be cost-competitive remains a challenge. This paper discusses ammonia as a carrier of green hydrogen for aviation, with near-zero emission. Ammonia is proposed as both a carrier of hydrogen as fuel and to provide cooling for compressor intercooling and cooled cooling air for core efficiency improvement,…

Ammonia cracker: design and safety considerations
Presentation

Ammonia cracking is an endothermic reaction with characteristics similar to those of steam methane reforming. As a result, large scale ammonia crackers are likely to more than a passing similarity to the steam-methane reformers which are currently used to convert natural gas to hydrogen. When transferring technology from one industry to another the challenge is to distinguish between know-how which benefits the new application, and which should therefore be applied; and know-how which is detrimental to the new application and therefore needs to be either unlearnt or relearnt. The presentation will cover the choices facing the designer of a large-scale…

Sunborne Systems: bringing keystone technologies to market for the global zero-carbon energy infrastructure
Presentation

At Sunborne Systems, we are developing zero-carbon ammonia-based solutions for heavy transport and high-energy industrial applications. Our keystone technologies are initially focussed on early opportunities in the maritime industry and have high disruption potential across multiple other hard-to-abate sectors. Sunborne Systems was announced a year ago at COP26 in Glasgow and is a joint venture technology company formed by STFC, Reaction Engines and IP Group building upon the technical strengths of Reaction Engines and STFC in thermal management and catalyst chemistry and their in-common expertise in system design and optimisation.

Air Products targets ammonia imports at UK port
Article

Air Products and Associated British Ports will develop a facility at the Port of Immingham for ammonia imports and hydrogen production (ie. cracking). Immingham is one of the UK’s largest ports and sits within Humberside: the UK’s largest industrial cluster. This follows on from a July announcement, which will see Air Products team up with Gunvor to develop an import terminal in Rotterdam, bringing ammonia from Air Products production projects around the world into Europe from 2026.

Syzygy & LOTTE join forces to deploy cracking tech in South Korea
Article

Syzygy Plasmonics, LOTTE and Sumitomo Corporation of Americas announced they will join forces to deploy & test Syzygy’s fully-electric, photocatalytic ammonia cracking reactor at LOTTE Chemical’s HQ in Ulsan, South Korea. Syzygy’s reactor technology uses light from ultra-high-efficiency LEDs to crack ammonia into zero-carbon hydrogen, eliminating combustion emissions usually associated with chemical manufacturing. The announcement is one of several new ammonia collaborations this week, with LOTTE, ITOCHU and Sasol all announcing new agreements.

Ammonia energy funding & acquisitions
Article

SK Innovation has led a successful $46 million capital funding round for New York-based Amogy. The new funds will go towards two ammonia-powered, heavy vehicle demonstration projects: an eighteen-wheel tractor trailer, and an ocean-going cargo ship. H2SITE has closed a successful €12.5 million Series A funding round led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures to expand manufacturing capacity in Spain, and Sweden-based organisation Alfa Laval will acquire RenCat’s patented ammonia reforming technology.

Air Products and Gunvor to develop new import terminal in Rotterdam
Article

Air Products and Gunvor will jointly develop a renewable ammonia import terminal at Gunvor Petroleum’s existing refinery & distribution facilities in Rotterdam Europoort. The partners expect to be providing hydrogen to the Netherlands in 2026, with the new terminal receiving imports of renewable ammonia from Air Products production projects around the world. The new project is now the third ammonia import terminal under development at the Port of Rotterdam, and comes the same week as Dutch gas network operator Gasunie announced that it had started construction of a national hydrogen distribution network in the Netherlands.

Ammonia cracking for maritime applications
Article

Swedish technology developer Metacon has delivered an ammonia cracking prototype unit to Pherousa Green Technologies in Norway for development of an ammonia-fed, zero emissions maritime propulsion system. The prototype itself was developed by Metacon subsidiary Helbio, who report the cracker achieves conversion rates of 99.3% with no ammonia slip, enabling it to feed a high-purity PEM fuel cell.

Government funding for ammonia energy in the UK
Article

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) will contribute to three ammonia energy projects via the latest funding round of its Net Zero Innovation Portfolio:

  • The Tyseley Ammonia to Green Hydrogen Project near Birmingham, where a demonstration ammonia cracking unit based on H2SITE’s technology will be built to deliver hydrogen transportation fuel.
  • The GreeNH3 project from Supercritical, ScottishPower and Proton Ventures to develop a renewable ammonia pilot plant based on Supercritical’s new electrolyser technology.
  • And the Ammonia Synthesis Plant from Intermittent Renewable Energy (ASPIRE) project. Partners the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and Frazer-Nash Consultancy are developing autonomous renewable ammonia production plants in the UK.