Converting Wind Energy to Ammonia at Lower Pressure
Abstract
Renewable wind energy can be used to make ammonia. However, wind-generated ammonia costs about twice of that made from a traditional fossil-fuel driven process. To reduce the production cost, we replace the conventional ammonia condensation with a selective absorber containing metal halides, e.g. calcium chloride, operating at near synthesis temperatures. With this reaction-absorption process, ammonia can be synthesized at 20 bar from air, water, and wind-generated electricity, with rates comparable to the conventional process running at 150-300 bar. In our reaction-absorption process, the rate of ammonia synthesis is now controlled not by the chemical reaction, but largely by the pump used to recycle the unreacted gases. The results suggest an alternative route to distributed ammonia manufacture which can locally supply nitrogen fertilizer and also a method to capture stranded wind energy as a carbon-neutral liquid fuel.
- Authors:
-
[1];
[1];
[1]
- Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (United States). Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
- Univ. of Minnesota, Morris, MN (United States). West Central Research and Outreach Center
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1412658
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1434926
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AR0000804
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 6; Journal Issue: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 2168-0485
- Publisher:
- American Chemical Society (ACS)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 10 SYNTHETIC FUELS; 17 WIND ENERGY; 25 ENERGY STORAGE; 36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; 74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS; Absorption; Energy storage; Mechanism; Metal halides; Reaction; 77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY
Citation Formats
Malmali, Mahdi, Reese, Michael, McCormick, Alon V., and Cussler, E. L. Converting Wind Energy to Ammonia at Lower Pressure. United States: N. p., 2017.
Web. doi:10.1021/acssuschemeng.7b03159.
Malmali, Mahdi, Reese, Michael, McCormick, Alon V., & Cussler, E. L. Converting Wind Energy to Ammonia at Lower Pressure. United States. https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.7b03159
Malmali, Mahdi, Reese, Michael, McCormick, Alon V., and Cussler, E. L. Tue .
"Converting Wind Energy to Ammonia at Lower Pressure". United States. https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.7b03159. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1412658.
@article{osti_1412658,
title = {Converting Wind Energy to Ammonia at Lower Pressure},
author = {Malmali, Mahdi and Reese, Michael and McCormick, Alon V. and Cussler, E. L.},
abstractNote = {Renewable wind energy can be used to make ammonia. However, wind-generated ammonia costs about twice of that made from a traditional fossil-fuel driven process. To reduce the production cost, we replace the conventional ammonia condensation with a selective absorber containing metal halides, e.g. calcium chloride, operating at near synthesis temperatures. With this reaction-absorption process, ammonia can be synthesized at 20 bar from air, water, and wind-generated electricity, with rates comparable to the conventional process running at 150-300 bar. In our reaction-absorption process, the rate of ammonia synthesis is now controlled not by the chemical reaction, but largely by the pump used to recycle the unreacted gases. The results suggest an alternative route to distributed ammonia manufacture which can locally supply nitrogen fertilizer and also a method to capture stranded wind energy as a carbon-neutral liquid fuel.},
doi = {10.1021/acssuschemeng.7b03159},
journal = {ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering},
number = 1,
volume = 6,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Nov 07 00:00:00 EST 2017},
month = {Tue Nov 07 00:00:00 EST 2017}
}
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