Amogy ammonia cracker tech to be installed on container ship

Developed by a New York-based start-up, Amogy, the company has developed a system that uses a catalyst ruthenium to split ammonia into its constituent parts of hydrogen and nitrogen, with the hydrogen used to operate a fuel cell for main engine power.

Ruthenium is a rare metal, which the Royal Society of Chemistry says is found in South Africa, Russia and Zimbabwe.

Seonghoon Woo, CEO at Amogy told Seatrade Maritime News: “We are starting small, but the technology can be scaled up to much larger, deepsea, ships.”

The Amogy system will be deployed on the vessel, housed in two 20ft containers, each with two 200kW powerpacks, 800kW in total and the boxes will include ventilation and state of the art safety systems, according to the New York based technology company Amogy.

Seatrade Maritime News understands that the vessel is scheduled to be delivered in 2026.

Bente Hetland, CEO of NCL, said in an Amogy press statement: “The Amogy ammonia-powered system meets the criteria in our latest project for very small container feeders,” adding, “This unique partnership with Amogy will allow us to demonstrate it is possible to provide world-class service and cut emissions at the same time.”

Hetland refused to respond to further questions on the vessel’s development, which will see the dispersal of nitrogen into the atmosphere.

Related:Amogy and MHI complete feasibility study on ammonia cracking for shipping

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Woo, however, claimed: “The hydrogen [derived from the cracked ammonia atom] is used to create electricity in a fuel cell, meanwhile the nitrogen is safely released into the atmosphere, which is already made up of about 78% nitrogen.”

According to Amogy nitrogen (N₂) in its pure form is not a greenhouse gas (GHG), however, "Nitrous oxide (N₂O), which is a greenhouse gas and is about 300 times more powerful than CO₂” and the GHG remains in the atmosphere for around 100 years.

“Nitrogen, N₂, in its original form is the most abundant gas on Earth at about 78% of the air that humans breathe. The ammonia (NH₃) that is fed into Amogy’s ammonia-cracking technology is produced from that abundant N₂. Therefore, the nitrogen that Amogy releases from the system is not excess N₂ and is completely harmless to the environment," according to Amogy engineers.

 The company also sought to differentiate its ammonia cracking technology from traditional ammonia combustion engines. "Unlike these engines, which emit significant quantities of NOx and N₂O, our ammonia-cracking process primarily produces N₂ and water as emissions. Any trace amounts of other harmful emissions remain significantly lower than industry standards and adhere strictly to the rules and regulations relevant to maintaining a safe product."

Related:Ammonia-powered container ship design awarded approval in principle

However, a recent UN Environment Programme (UNEP) paper, Frontiers Report 2018-2019, warned that “nitrogen costs the global economy between US$340 billion and US$3.4 trillion annually when taking into account its impact on human health and ecosystems.”

UNEP warns of the dangers caused by nitrogen, mainly from agricultural use of fertilisers, but also from gas emissions.

“Altogether, humans are producing a cocktail of reactive nitrogen that threatens health, climate and ecosystems, making nitrogen one of the most important pollution issues facing humanity,” said UNEP.

Professor Mark Sutton of Edinburgh University, who focuses on ammonia and the wider nitrogen cycle, linking disciplines from micrometeorology and atmospheric chemistry to plant ecology and policy analysis, was less certain about Amogy’s claims.

According to Professor Sutton N₂ in the atmosphere can react with lightening to make nitric acid and this can form N₂O, which is an ozone depleting chemical, which is not covered by the Montreal Protocol on ozone depleting chemicals, signed in 1987.

“Five to 10% of nitrates can be formed in this way, it is not critical, but it is not insignificant either,” he said.

Moreover, Professor Sutton said he would like to see a peer reviewed study that demonstrated that ammonia cracking would avoid harmful GHG emissions, and that also show there are no other effects that “we haven’t thought about”.

In addition, the cracking process is thought to have an “energy penalty” which could see the process “lose 40% of the ammonia’s energy in the cracking process,” although Professor Sutton said he had not seen the details of this, and could not be unequivocal about this process.

However, there would need to be further investigations to understand the process, because if ammonia cracking loses energy, there will be a “big issue with the efficiency question”.