RENEWABLE & SUSTAINABLE ENERGY REVIEWS, v.152, pp.111562
Abstract
This study comprehensively investigates hydrogen production from green ammonia reforming, including synthesis of catalysts, reactor development, process integration, and techno-economic analysis. In-house developed Ru/La-Al2O3 pellet catalyst having perovskite structure showed high catalytic activity of 2827 h(-1) at 450 degrees C and stability over 6700 h at 550 degrees C, exceeding the performance of the majority of powder catalysts reported in the literature. A scalable 12-faceted reactor adopting the as-produced catalyst was designed to enhance heat transfer, producing over 66 L min(-1) of hydrogen with state-of-the-art ammonia reforming efficiency of 83.6 %. Near-zero CO2 emission of hydrogen extraction from green ammonia was demonstrated by-product gas recirculation as a combustion heat source. A techno-economic assessment was conducted for system scales from 10 kW to 10 MW, demonstrating the effect of reduced minimum hydrogen selling prices from 7.03 USD kg(-1) at small modular scales to 3.98 USD kg(-1) at larger industrial scales. Sensitivity analyses indicate that hydrogen selling prices may reduce even further (up to 50 %). The suggested hydrogen production route from green NH3 demonstrates superior CO2 reduction ranging from 78 % to 95 % in kg CO2 (kg H-2)(-1) compared to biomass gasification and steam methane reforming. These findings can be used as a basis for following economic and policy studies to further validate the effectiveness of the suggested system and process for H-2 production from NH3.