Economic Optimization of Local Australian Ammonia Production Using Plasma Technologies with Green/Turquoise Hydrogen

Abstract

Growing concern about the supply of goods under the COVID pandemic due to border restrictions and community lockdown has made us aware of the limitations of the global supply chain. Fertilizers are pivotal for the growth and welfare of humankind, and there is more than a century of history in industrial technology. Ammonia is the key platform chemical here which can be chemically diversified to all kinds of fertilizers. This article puts a perspective on production technologies that can enable a supply of ammonia locally and on-demand in Australia, for the farmers to produce resilient and self-sustained fertilizers. To assess the validity of such a new business model, multiobjective optimization has to be undergone, and computing is the solution to rank the millions of possible solutions. In this lieu, an economic optimization framework for the Australian ammonia supply chain is presented. The model seeks to address the economic potential of distributed ammonia plants across Australia. Different techniques for hydrogen and related ammonia production such as thermal plasma, nonthermal plasma, and electrolysis (all typifying technology disruption), and mini Haber–Bosch (typifying scale disruption) are benchmarked to the central mega plant on a world-scale using conventional technology, verifying that “Moore’s Law” (Mack, C. A. IEEE Trans. 2011, 24 (2), 202–207) of growing bigger and bigger is not the only path to sustainable agriculture. Results show that ammonia can be produced at $317/ton at a regional scale using thermal plasma hydrogen generation which could be competitive to the conventional production model, if credit in terms of lead time and carbon footprint could be taken into account.

Sustainable Hydrogen and Ammonia Technologies with Nonthermal Plasma Catalysis: Mechanistic Insights and Technoeconomic Analysis

“…In doing so, part of the electricity is utilized for converting CO 2 to high-value products (e.g., synthetic methane, syngas) which can be offset in the ammonia synthesis process. More importantly, plasma processes can be seen as a technological disruption for a more facile transportation network with a lower carbon footprint (i.e., decentralized) instead of using a large centralized source . Alternatively, innovative strategies of using plasma for activating catalysts, or other reactions instead of the in-plasma catalytic design, should be explored, like the case of hybrid plasma-electrocatalytic ammonia synthesis (Figure b) .…”

Thermal plasma-aided chemical looping carbon dioxide dissociation for fuel production from aluminium particles

“…We have given a life cycle assessment for potential scenarios of distributed small-scale fertiliser processes to identify the best operating conditions in which environment and process economy are balanced; also hypothesising a circular production concept based on biomass [25][26][27]. Furthermore, we have shown the economic viability of the regional regional production concept recently for thermal plasma-based ammonia fertilizer production [29]. A regional plant is considered as intermediate capacity between local and world-scale production, such as 100 kt/a for a bulk-scale chemical.…”

Predicting the Ammonia Synthesis Performance of Plasma Catalysis Using an Artificial Neural Network Model

“…It can also offer a new option to the problem of grid instability as it can store fluctuating electricity generated from renewable energy sources . Because of plasma ammonia synthesis characteristics, energy utilization and product synthesis can occur close to the consumption point, offering an alternative to decentralized small-scale production in remote areas . Moreover, plasma ammonia synthesis is energy and cost saving in theory.…”

“…19 Because of plasma ammonia synthesis characteristics, energy utilization and product synthesis can occur close to the consumption point, offering an alternative to decentralized small-scale production in remote areas. 20 Moreover, plasma ammonia synthesis is energy and cost saving in theory. Compared to the Haber−Bosch method (0.48 MJ/mol), the nonthermal plasma (NTP) ammonia synthesis has a much lower theoretical energy consumption of about 0.2 MJ/mol.…”