21–30 of 179 posts
Do we know if this process is burstable (i.e. the devices for running it are likely cheap enough compared to the energy requirement that they don't need to run 24/7, and could use excess renewable energy when available)?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not just fertilizer: "In addition to its use in the fertilizer and chemical industries, ammonia is currently seen as a potential replacement for carbon-based fuels and as a carrier for worldwide transportation of renewable energy." Long-term grid storage? Publication: 22 July 2022 Anyone know if maybe some pilot / small scale production facility has been set up in the mean time? I've read about a farm that produced i…
Are there power plants today that burn ammonia directly? If not, is it a simple/cheap enough conversion?
What does the term "current-to-ammonia efficiency" mean here? I imagine it would refer to the specificity of the reaction, i.e. that 99% of the electrons passing through the system are used in the main reaction, and The abstract doesn't go into detail on energy efficiency and a comparison to the old method using gas. For instance, would this method result in less CO2 emissions using regular grid electricity, or would…
My naive interpretation would be "almost 100% of the energy put into the process gets chemically stored in the ammonia".
To know the energy efficiency, besides the current efficiency, which is close to 100%, we need to know how big is the overvoltage needed for electrolysis.
Big if true... This could enable fertilizer production with no CO2 emissions. The numbers in the paper suggest that it might prove cheaper than natural gas based production which is common today. Fertilizer production is 2.1% of all CO2 emissions right now.
Could you explain exactly why you would say this?
Working past their fake news headlines like 100%. Hydrogen is almost 100% and that's not big if true.
We are decades away for renewable electricity only for our electric needs.
Then you have oil and many other things electric can replace which are worse than gas.
What about this is big? In a dream world of unlimited electricity everything is easy, like synth fuel and fertilizer and climate control. Today, burning coal to make fertilizer doesn't seem good, if this is true.
One downside of ammonia is its toxicity (with an IDLH threshold of 300 ppm). I doubt we'll ever see cars running on it, and storing large amounts as energy storage sounds risky. Do we know if this process is burstable (i.e. the devices for running it are likely cheap enough compared to the energy requirement that they don't need to run 24/7, and could use excess renewable energy when available)?
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“Laser-induced nitrogen fixation” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-41441-0
This is Open Access, and mentions how that is also a leap forward in Nitrogen fixation
“Abstract: For decarbonization of ammonia production in industry, alternative methods by exploiting renewable energy sources have recently been explored. Nonetheless, they still lack yield and efficiency to be industrially relevant. Here, we demonstrate an advanced approach of nitrogen fixation to synthesize ammonia at ambient conditions via laser–induced multiphoton dissociation of lithium oxide. Lithium oxide is dissociated under non–equilibrium multiphoton absorption and high temperatures under focused infrared light, and the generated zero–valent metal spontaneously fixes nitrogen and forms a lithium nitride, which upon subsequent hydrolysis generates ammonia. The highest ammonia yield rate of 30.9 micromoles per second per square centimeter is achieved at 25 °C and 1.0 bar nitrogen. This is two orders of magnitude higher than state–of–the–art ammonia synthesis at ambient conditions. The focused infrared light here is produced by a commercial simple CO2 laser, serving as a demonstration of potentially solar pumped lasers for nitrogen fixation and other high excitation chemistry. We anticipate such laser-involved technology will bring unprecedented opportunities to realize not only local ammonia production but also other new chemistries.”
One downside of ammonia is its toxicity (with an IDLH threshold of 300 ppm). I doubt we'll ever see cars running on it, and storing large amounts as energy storage sounds risky. Do we know if this process is burstable (i.e. the devices for running it are likely cheap enough compared to the energy requirement that they don't need to run 24/7, and could use excess renewable energy when available)?
Well, petrol or diesel isn't that nice either
Gas doing 2 of those 3, and diesel only 1.
Big if true... This could enable fertilizer production with no CO2 emissions. The numbers in the paper suggest that it might prove cheaper than natural gas based production which is common today. Fertilizer production is 2.1% of all CO2 emissions right now.
Not just fertilizer: "In addition to its use in the fertilizer and chemical industries, ammonia is currently seen as a potential replacement for carbon-based fuels and as a carrier for worldwide transportation of renewable energy." Long-term grid storage? Publication: 22 July 2022 Anyone know if maybe some pilot / small scale production facility has been set up in the mean time? I've read about a farm that produced i…
Fertilizer production via this method might be a good fit for times when rates are low or even negative due to wind energy overproduction during off peak.