Site items in: Cracking Ammonia

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.

Ammonigy: Speedboats powered by green ammonia
Article

In order to demonstrated ammonia-fueled solutions in a variety of applications, Stuttgart-based organisation Ammonigy has developed two patented technologies: a modular cracking unit that provides hydrogen to act as an “igniter” for the ammonia fuel, and an exhaust treatment system to minimise NOx emissions from the engine. But, while the principles behind Ammonigy’s technology solutions are very familiar to our readers, using them to convert a speedboat to run on ammonia fuel is certainly new! This week we explore results from testing on the GREEN AMY: the world’s first ammonia-powered speedboat.