Progression of Ammonia as a Fuel

"Exage03040 @ opposite-lock.com" (exage03040)
06/30/2020 at 15:35 • Filed to: engines, engineering, Fuel, #SHIPLOPNIK, shippositelock, marine, Green, alternate fuels, alternative energy

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“Wärtsilä, Knutsen OAS Shipping AS, and Repsol, and the Sustainable Energy Catapult Center, have teamed for the effort, as ammonia offers promise as a carbon-free fuel for marine applications, to meet the IMO’s mandate of cutting emissions from shipping by at least 50 percent by 2050.

Development work by Wärtsilä, as it prepares for the use of ammonia as a fuel, continues with this testing program, which is touted as the world`s first full-scale four-stroke combustion engine test. The project will commence in the Sustainable Energy Catapult Center’s testing facilities at Stord, Norway during the first quarter of 2021.”

- MarineLink

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“ Ammonia has a number of properties that require further investigation. It ignites and burns poorly compared to other fuels and is toxic and corrosive, making safe handling and storage important. Burning ammonia could also lead to higher NOx emissions unless controlled either by aftertreatment or by optimizing the combustion process. A regulatory framework and class rules will need to be developed for its use as a marine fuel.

Wärtsilä is investigating several future fuels, including synthetic methane, ammonia, hydrogen and methanol, with a view to providing complete flexibility across engines and the fuel chain. Internal combustion engines can be adapted to burn any fuel. Dual-fuel or spark-ignited engines are already capable of burning liquified natural gas - from fossil, biomass or synthetic sources – while diesel engines can run on liquid biofuels, biodiesel or e-diesel”

- Wärtsilä Marine

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Ammonia differs in composition to the typical fuels we currently use that are composed primarily of hydrocarbons C X H x . Octane for example is C 8 H 18 . It is thus regarded as a “ carbon free fuel” .

In the m arine s ector we primarily use hydrocarbon fuels of diesel and heavier fuel oils that contain sulphur (now content limited to 5000ppm worldwide and 1000ppm in designated emission controlled areas ) as well as other impurities that lead to undesirable combustion products of CO 2 , NOx, SOx, and ash that are leading to climate change . Much like the automotive industry the marine industry is also engaged in reducing pollution and emissions.

Marine vessel adoption into engines that run primarily on Natural Gas (mostly CH 4 ) still develop CO 2 and NOx (albeit lower) as a product of combustion, however Sulphur SOx and ash are almost eliminated. Worldwide infrastructure is limited and system designs make LNG storage and thus NG fuelled vessel currently limited to mostly coastal applications , particularly in emission controlled areas. The exception being LNG tankers which draw off a small portion of the cargo during the voyage .

Ammonia composition is NH 3 by which does not contain the carbon element. And so CO 2 is not produced when used as a fuel.

Combustion: 4 NH 3 + 3 O 2 2 N 2 + 6 H 2 O ( g ) + Energy

Also produced in the combustion process is of course NO and NO 2 or NOx:

4 NH 3 + 5 O 2 4 NO + 6 H 2 O

2 NO +O 2 2 NO 2

Wärtsilä mentioned that ammonia combustion could lead to “increased NOx emissions unless controlled either by aftertreatment or by optimising the combustion process”.

It’s likely they will explore and use both to combat this. Wärtsilä and other marine engine manufactures currently have urea injection and selective catalytic reduction for NOx emissions for current fuel oil engines to meet current emission regulations regarding NOx emissions . This is a s imilar system to what modern diesel pickups and trucks use, only bigger in scale :

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Previously noted issues regarding a mmonia are it’s toxic vapours which in even small doses can be hazardous to health and that it becomes highly corrosive when mixed with water. These will have to be factored into application with regards to vessels in terms of storage, handling/transfer , system maintenance/repair and leakage monitoring.

I had heard of this previously being explored but had not actively looked into it. The sector is concerned that it will not be able to meet the future emission targets to be set out with regards to longer transoceanic voyages as fuel oils are still the only current viable option at present.

I hope you found this interesting!

DISCUSSION (16)

CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > Exage03040 @ opposite-lock.com
06/30/2020 at 15:46

Kinja'd!!!

Pee powered car confirmed

Exage03040 @ opposite-lock.com > CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever
06/30/2020 at 15:58

Okay :)

We already have fart powered ships so it’s just the next progression!

ClassicDatsunDebate > Exage03040 @ opposite-lock.com
06/30/2020 at 16:03

Interesting. I have a feeling that all the technical challenges surrounding safe handling of Ammonia will make it untenable .

The article also mentions corrosion. I have seen the effects of ammonia on reciprocating pumps (which are basically piston engines without the bang) and even with fairly exotic alloys, the maintenance cycles are shorter than one would expect from a diesel engine . Now factor in combustion temperatures and phase-change and...man. Sounds like an interesting R&D project though. Might shake loose some other good ideas to help lower the notoriously high carbon footprint of the marine industry.

ttyymmnn > Exage03040 @ opposite-lock.com
06/30/2020 at 16:07

Is that a copy paste of the full article?

CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > ttyymmnn
06/30/2020 at 16:10

I think he probably wrote it

Exage03040 @ opposite-lock.com > ttyymmnn
06/30/2020 at 16:12

No, just a couple paragraphs of relevancy of the M arineL ink article and Wärtsilä press release. Which on their own are dry and confusing without context.

The “Why it’s important?” section below them is my own personal work in explaining relevancy.

HammerheadFistpunch > Exage03040 @ opposite-lock.com
06/30/2020 at 16:13

The toxicity thing is a huge hurdle to overcome.

Exage03040 @ opposite-lock.com > ClassicDatsunDebate
06/30/2020 at 16:30

I agree 100%

One issue Marine is facing right now is the reduction of sulphur in the fuels with acts as a lubricant so they’re already dealing with reductions in the injection system components with regards to longevity and increased maintenance and problems (not to mention costs).

It’s actually interesting though because LNG is also a serious pain in the ass at -130C and pressurized typically around 3bar/45psi in transfer. So it has it’s own issues during our fuel transfers and system designs for safety with regards to containment and monitoring for leaks in the enclosed spaces as well as firefighting systems. But they’ve managed to jump through a huge amount of hoops in design vessels around it.. .

Wärtsilä is a seriously major player in m arine engine suppliers (l ike top 2 worldwide for ships ) so this isn’t some sort of rag tag interest project. If they think it’s worth pursuing, especially in a full scale test it’s actually very significant.

HoustonRunner > Exage03040 @ opposite-lock.com
06/30/2020 at 16:44

An interesting tangent to this is the change in fuel demand due to COVID-19. Overall transportation fuels are down, but marine fuel took the lead hit, and road fuels are coming back. What is going to be much slower to come back is jet fuel. Refiners / blenders are already “blending down” jet to meet the new marine fuel specs, we will have to see how much this continues and how it impacts marine fuel prices.

(Clearly that doesn’t help the sulfur as a lubricant issue, but may help prices.)

ClassicDatsunDebate > Exage03040 @ opposite-lock.com
06/30/2020 at 16:48

Wartsila also has lots of experience with natural gas over the last 10 years. I’ve been in the Cabin Gas power plant which as a bank of their 24 cyl units (?) very cool.

Exage03040 @ opposite-lock.com > HammerheadFistpunch
06/30/2020 at 16:56

Absolutely.

The industry is very very crafty though. As I mentioned to CDD above, they’ve managed to work around the problems of pressurized cryogenic -200F LNG and gas leaks to run vessels safely.

A different bag of worms certainly, but apparently one Wärtsilä is willing to seriously explore in viability by going to full scale. Real tip of the spear stuff this is!

Exage03040 @ opposite-lock.com > HoustonRunner
06/30/2020 at 17:27

It’s a serious squeeze for sure. Especially considering this year they dropped the sulphur content significantly which means the cost will rise because of whats required in refinery, but I can definitely see this maybe not being as big of a hit as refineries are forced to go heavy as demand for aviation has dropped . Covid certainly tossed everything upside down .

The other angle is that IMO is pushing for significantly reduced CO 2 emissions into the future with reductions every 5 years. They’re using it sort of like the EPA and fuel economy target goals. The near coast stuff is already getting sorted with LNG and plug-in hybrid battery vessels because of IMO Tier III . I t’s the long voyage deep sea stuff that’s the real head scratcher in how to meet these goals in the next 30 years .

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > Exage03040 @ opposite-lock.com
06/30/2020 at 19:02

Here’s another way of doing it. A mob at CSIRO have developed a process for extracting hydrogen from ammonia.

https://www.csiro.au/en/Research/EF/Areas/Renewable-and-low-emission-tech/Hydrogen

The theory is that Australia already has an organised network and system for the distribution of liquid ammonia for the purposes of agricultural fertilizer. Many parts of North America and Europe would have similar networks.

Given the potential challenge of moving hydrogen fuel around and the learnings required to do that (and therefore the cost), why not leverage off an existing network?

Exage03040 @ opposite-lock.com > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media
06/30/2020 at 20:02

It’s certainly another avenue by use.

But as stated in the membrane portion, hydrogen is low density so you run into a quantity problem with the use of high pressures to cram it as a gas which becomes an issue for large ocean going vessels with large fuel storage tanks or cryogenic temperatures of below -250C and pressurized to liquefy it. Even for fuel cell use it suffers the same issue that LNG faces for long voyages with regards to insulated pressure storage tanks. It’s viable for maybe smaller systems and coastal vessels.

Another issue is that hydrogen ( as demonstrated by the H indenberg) has a very broad flammability range of 4-74% in air. With respect; g asoline is 1.4-7.6%, di esel 0.6-7.5% and n atural g as is 5-15% . Therefore leaks are a huge concern with hydrogen.

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > Exage03040 @ opposite-lock.com
06/30/2020 at 22:36

Correct.

However, transporting, storing and transferring liquid ammonia is a known quantity. We’ve been doing it safely for decades. So if we do that and can extract hydrogen from it using this method on as needs basis at fuelling location required, we therefore only store the minimum volume of hydrogen necessary for job at hand.

For hydrogen powered vehicles, this means we can mostly use our existing fuel infrastructure for distribution.

For shipping...well it all depends whether hydrogen is an appropriate fuel source for the job, either directly or indirectly through electricity generation. But it’s the same principle...ship is ‘fueled’ with ammonia, hydrogen is extracted onboard from ammonia as required to run engine/generator.

Exage03040 @ opposite-lock.com > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media
06/30/2020 at 23:42

I see what your getting at but I’m not sure if the catalytic membrane is a feasible solution for this application. Their prototype is said to produce over 5kg per day. Which is a minuscule amount. For viability you’d have to create one with significantly more output but also keep in mind that serviceable component space is at premium on board a vessel, so it’s going to have size restriction. It might have to be limited to shore side installations for hydrogen production.

https://www.gencellenergy.com/gencell-technology/ammonia-fuel/#nfc

Here is something similar with Ammonia being converted to hydrogen and powering a fuel cell for electricity . And it’s all find and dandy, until it stated that it only makes 5kW and 2 enclosed units end to end look to be the size of that 1980kW 9L20 engine ... It’s not so much a problem with the fuel cell as we have road vehicles like the Toyota Mirai that work with highly compressed hydrogen and can produce decent power output to supply it’s electric motor , it’s that the membrane simply doesn’t have the local hydrogen generation capacity on site for the size to supply anywhere near the power for cargo vessel propulsion .