Decarbonizing hydrogen supply chain via electrifying endothermic processes

Abstract

Chemical/manufacturing industries are significant source of CO2 emissions. Despite the ongoing development of renewable pathways, there remains a substantial gap in enabling these resources for industrial applications while enhancing the thermal efficiency. Hydrogen has been proposed as a useful energy vector, however, its large-scale storage/transportation is still a challenge. Alternatively, ammonia has been proposed as a hydrogen carrier, since it is more readily transported and stored. But the hydrogen recovery from ammonia requires a high endothermic heat and may cause significant emissions when the traditionally fossil-fuel-based heating is used. In this work, we describe the electrified reactor configurations that can enable the integration of renewable powers with the manufacturing processes to provide the endothermic heat. In particular, we demonstrate the technical feasibility of the proposed reactor configurations for ammonia decomposition, enabling the storage and transportation of hydrogen while decarbonizing its production and retaining the mechanical/process integrity through a programmed heating.