{"id":29289,"date":"2023-04-07T14:00:17","date_gmt":"2023-04-07T13:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/?p=29289"},"modified":"2023-04-06T14:47:53","modified_gmt":"2023-04-06T13:47:53","slug":"advanced-materials-reactors-energy-storage-through-ammonia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/advanced-materials-reactors-energy-storage-through-ammonia\/29289\/","title":{"rendered":"Advanced materials and reactors for energy storage through ammonia"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ARENHA project is working to overcome the technical challenges of using green ammonia for flexible, safe, and profitable energy storage.<\/h2>\n

Renewable energy is playing an important role in addressing some of the key challenges facing today\u2019s global society, such as climate change, energy costs, and energy security. However, renewable energy deployment requires higher energy storage capacity to overcome the inherent intermittency of renewable resources and increase their share of generation capacity and integration to the grid. The main issue is matching energy generation to demand.<\/p>\n

Different energy storage technologies are available, such as batteries or pumped hydro. However, they cannot solve all issues of energy storage because of their constraints. Moreover, geological factors often affect their deployment. Battery systems could be decisive components of the energy management system, especially for fast response services and short-term grid storage.<\/p>\n

Why ammonia?<\/h3>\n

The Power-to-X technologies (Power-to-Gas, Power-to-Chemicals, Power-to-Liquids) that turn renewable energy into energy carriers \u2013 that can be later used \u2013 could be a suitable solution for different energy storage needs. In this conversion, the X can refer to a wide number of possible energy carriers, including fuel, gas, heat, hydrogen, chemicals, ammonia, and liquids.<\/p>\n

The only sufficiently flexible mechanism allowing large quantities of energy to be stored over long time periods at any location is chemical energy storage via hydrogen or carbon-neutral derivatives.<\/p>\n

Hydrogen is considered as an ideal and clean energy carrier<\/a> because its combustion produces only water as a by-product. Therefore, hydrogen produced from electrolysis could be a key pathway to unlocking the full potential of renewable and seasonal energy storage of large energy quantities and, more specifically, for all situations dealing with a large energy-to-power ratio situation. Hydrogen has a low volumetric energy density, which requires it to be either compressed to high pressure, liquefied, or combined with other elements acting as hydrogen carriers.<\/p>\n

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Fig. 1: Volumetric energy density of different fuels<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When comparing the volumetric energy density of different fuels (Fig. 1), ammonia is a carbon-free and dispatchable energy carrier allowing it to store large quantities of renewable electricity. It is a primary candidate to allow a secure and clean supply of renewable energy for various stationary or mobile applications and can provide a wide range of energy storage services using existing infrastructures, well-defined regulations, and acceptable safety history for over 75 years.<\/p>\n

Existing ammonia production plants produce around 3,000-6,000 tonnes of NH3<\/sub>\u00a0per day, but this well-known process currently involves H2<\/sub>\u00a0production from natural gas reforming. Ammonia can be liquified by compression to ten atmospheres at room temperature, or by cooling down to -33\u00b0C atmospheric pressure. However, to store hydrogen at scale it needs to be compressed to around 350-700 times atmospheric pressure, or cryogenically cooled to around -253\u00b0C. Therefore, the storage and transport of ammonia is easier, less energy-intensive, and more cost-effective than storing and transporting hydrogen.<\/p>\n

However, technical challenges must be overcome to ensure the flexible and cost-competitive production of ammonia from intermittent renewable electricity sources. In addition, efficient energy discharge processes from NH3<\/sub>\u00a0must be developed to leverage the clean energy produced upstream by the renewable asset.<\/p>\n

The ARENHA project<\/h3>\n

The ARENHA H2020 project<\/a> is a European project with global impact, seeking to develop, integrate, and demonstrate key material solutions enabling the use of ammonia for flexible, safe, and profitable energy storage.<\/p>\n

Ammonia is an excellent energy carrier due to its high energy density, carbon-free composition, industrial knowhow, and relative ease of storage. ARENHA will demonstrate the feasibility of ammonia as a dispatchable form of large-scale energy storage, enabling the integration of renewable electricity in Europe and creating global green energy corridors for Europe\u2019s energy import diversification.<\/p>\n

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Fig. 2: Power-to-ammonia-to-usage value chain in ARENHA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The ARENHA project aims to use ammonia as a green hydrogen carrier, and for this purpose, it develops its main activities around the full power-to-ammonia-to-usage value chain, addressing green hydrogen production, ammonia synthesis, ammonia storage, and ammonia dehydrogenation (Fig. 2).<\/p>\n

Innovative materials are developed and integrated into groundbreaking systems to demonstrate a flexible and profitable power-to-ammonia value chain and several key energy storage and discharge processes. Two different levels of research and development are addressed within the frame of ARENHA.<\/p>\n

The first is basic research for developing long-term future technologies, such as direct electrochemical ammonia synthesis from nitrogen and water and electrochemical nitrogen synthesis. The other is basic research and small prototypes for developing short- to medium-term technologies of the ammonia value chain.<\/p>\n

Specifically, ARENHA is developing advanced solid oxide electrolysis cells (SOECs) for renewable hydrogen production, catalysts for low temperature\/pressure ammonia synthesis, solid absorbents for ammonia synthesis intensification and storage, catalysts, and membrane reactors for ammonia decomposition for pure hydrogen (>99.99%) production.<\/p>\n

Energy discharge processes studied in ARENHA tackle various applications from ammonia decomposition into pure H2<\/sub>, direct ammonia utilisation on SOECs for power, and ICEs for mobility.<\/p>\n

ARENHA will demonstrate the full power-to-ammonia-to-usage value chain at TRL 5 and the outstanding potential of green ammonia to address the issue of large-scale energy storage through life cycle assessments, sociological surveys, and techno-economic analysis deeply connected with multiscale modelling. For this purpose, breakthrough technologies will be developed and integrated along the overall value chain. The main technical objectives on the material and system levels are:<\/p>\n