Ammonia Production from Renewables at Ambient Temperature and Pressure. Developing a process for reduction of nitrogen to ammonia.

Ammonia is increasingly recognised as a readily exportable carrier of hydrogen or, more broadly, renewable energy. The global transportation of ammonia by bulk carrier is already a well-established technology. There is great potential to generate ammonia from Australian renewables via direct electrochemical reduction of atmospheric nitrogen. Monash University has developed and patented electrolyte and catalyst technology for this process which holds the world record in efficiency at near-ambient pressure and temperature. A spin-out company is being established by Monash to expand and scale up this technology, with the support of investment company IP Group plc. The project proposed herein will leverage this investment in cell engineering by further developing the electrode/catalyst basis of the technology, as a parallel activity that will accelerate progress towards a practical and scalable process. The targeted catalyst/electrode combinations will provide high NH3 production rate, long lifetime, and high selectivity against dihydrogen by-product; these factors determine the energy and capital costs of the process. High performance in these metrics form the key goals of the project. The ultimate project goal is to demonstrate energy efficiency and yield rates that support cost-effective production of ammonia from renewables at large scale.