(Invited) Ammonia Electrolysis from Fundamentals to Scale up

Abstract

Dr. Botte’s research group has been studying the ammonia electrolysis process, for the production of nitrogen and hydrogen from ammonia and ammonia waste streams, from fundamentals in materials for electrocatalysis including computational work, mathematical modeling, optimization studies and microkinetic models combined with hydrodynamic analysis, simulation on parallel plates flow cells to system integration and scale-up in a skid with a stack of 6000 cm2 electrolysis cell, the biggest reported in the literature. In this presentation, we will discuss how the integration of the components have been critical for the evolution of the technology. In addition, results from the most recent prototype of this technology, installed in a wastewater treatment plant in line with a clinocliptolite ion exchange system that capture the ammonia from wastewater and concentrated it prior to the inlet of the electrolyzer, will be discussed. The electrochemical process operates in a polarity pulse mode that allows NH3 conversions above 80% with specific energy consumption of 5.7 kWh kg−1 of NH3-N without considering the energy that can be obtained from the H2.