Doga Demirhan*, William Tso, Efstratios Pistikopoulos
Texas A&M University, United States
NH3 Fuel Conference, Minneapolis, November 2, 2017
AIChE Annual Meeting, Topical Conference: NH3 Energy+
ABSTRACT
Synthetic ammonia production has played a huge role in sustaining population growth by providing the nitrogen in fertilizers that are widely used in modern agriculture. Even long after it was first commercially developed by Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch in the 1930s, the Haber-Bosch process remains the basis for industrial ammonia production today. Through reducing energy requirements by half in the last 50 years, centralized industrial plants have kept their technical and economic advantage over other modes of operation. However, the centralized production also comes with high transportation costs, since plant capacities usually exceed local ammonia consumption [1]. This and the fact that conventional ammonia production is a major contributor of world greenhouse gas emissions (due to natural gas being one of its feedstocks) are motivating factors for researchers to consider alternative methods for smaller-scale and more environmentally-friendly ammonia production [2]. Continue reading
