Ammonia Draws New Interest Amid Move to Cleaner Power

"TOKYO -- Plans to clean up coal-fired power plants with ammonia, a compound commonly used to make fertilizer [1], are attracting new investment from big companies.

Ammonia, made of hydrogen and nitrogen, doesn't emit carbon dioxide and can be mixed with coal at power plants to lower carbon emissions. Companies in the U.S., Australia, Japan and elsewhere see ammonia as a way for Asia, the world's biggest coal consumer, to gradually wean itself off the fossil fuel.

In January, Exxon Mobil Corp. awarded a design contract for a facility in Baytown, Texas, that will begin producing ammonia in the next half-decade. Some will be shipped to South Korea to be burned in coal-fired power plants.

Two months later, Norwegian fertilizer maker Yara International ASA and Canadian energy company Enbridge Inc. announced plans for another Texas plant. At a cost of up to $2.9 billion, it will produce ammonia for uses including power production and shipping fuel.

Late last year, Japanese refiner Idemitsu Kosan Co. said it would tie up with Sydney-based renewable-power developer Energy Estate Pty. Ltd. and aim to begin producing around 500,000 tons of ammonia annually in northern Australia for potential export to Japan.

"There's a lot of eagerness from ammonia developers to tap into this export market," said Mariana Santos Moreira, who heads energy-transition chemicals research at Wood Mackenzie.

Producers expect Japan and South Korea -- two of the world's top fossil-fuel importers -- to be among the big early buyers of ammonia for energy generation.

Tests in which coal is co-fired with ammonia have advanced recently in Japan. Power companies like ammonia because they don't have to scrap existing plants and can gradually increase the proportion of the clean-burning fuel." [2]

1. "The production of nitrogen fertilizers in original Haber–Bosch reaction chambers used osmium as the catalyst, but it was available in extremely small quantities. Haber noted uranium was almost as effective and easier to obtain than osmium. In 1909, BASF researcher Alwin Mittasch discovered a much less expensive iron-based catalyst that is still used. A major contributor to the elucidation of this catalysis was Gerhard Ertl.[16][17][18][19] The most popular catalysts are based on iron promoted with K2O, CaO, SiO2, and Al2O3.

During the interwar years, alternative processes were developed, most notably the Casale process, Claude process, and the Mont-Cenis process developed by Friedrich Uhde Ingenieurbüro.[20] Luigi Casale and Georges Claude proposed to increase the pressure of the synthesis loop to 80–100 MPa (800–1,000 bar; 12,000–15,000 psi), thereby increasing the single-pass ammonia conversion and making nearly complete liquefaction at ambient temperature feasible. Claude proposed to have three or four converters with liquefaction steps in series, thereby avoiding recycling. Most plants continue to use the original Haber process (20 MPa (200 bar; 2,900 psi) and 500 °C (932 °F)), albeit with improved single-pass conversion and lower energy consumption due to process and catalyst optimization."

"What is the role of K2O and Al2O3 in the Haber process?

Use of catalyst such as iron oxide with small amounts of K2O and Al2O3 ( these act as promoters) increases the rate of attainment of equilibrium in Haber's Process."

2. Ammonia Draws New Interest Amid Move to Cleaner Power
Davis, River.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 14 Apr 2023: B.5.