Korea Southern Power Company AMMONIA TERMINAL

Journal of the Energy Institute

Volume 111, December 2023, 101365

Ammonia utilization technology for thermal power generation: A review

Author links open overlay panelMuhammad Aziz , Firman Bagja Juangsa , Adrian Rizqi Irhamna , Achmad
a b c b

Rofi Irsyad , Hariana Hariana , Arif Darmawan

b d d

Show more
Add to Mendeley
Share
Cite
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joei.2023.101365Get rights and content

Highlights
 •
Ammonia is promising hydrogen storage due to high H density and carbon-free.
2

 •
The work reviews its combustion characteristics, NOx formation, and improvement efforts.
 •
 Low flammability is driven by slow flame speed; catalytic combustion is proposed.
 •
Ammonia combustion and NOx formation include complicated reaction mechanisms.
 •
Co-firing in coal power plants and retrofitting the gas turbine with premix fuel is applicable.

Abstract
Hydrogen is a clean secondary energy source; however, effective hydrogen storage is demanded as it has a very low
volumetric density. Ammonia is promising to store hydrogen effectively due to its high gravimetric and volumetric
hydrogen densities, carbon-free, established infrastructure, and possibility for direct utilization without
decomposition. However, ammonia utilization faces several challenges, including low combustion performance and
the possibility of NO emission. This work reviews the characteristics of ammonia during combustion, ammonia
x

combustion technologies, and efforts made to answer the problems in ammonia combustion. Ammonia adoption as
fuel is promising, although some challenges must be solved toward broader and more efficient combustion. The low
flammability of ammonia is mainly determined by the low flame speed of ammonia and high ignition energy, and
catalytic combustion is considered a promising technology to overcome this problem. Moreover, ammonia
combustion and NO formation include complicated reactions, and the mechanisms have been studied intensively.
x

Some methods to mitigate NO formation include improvements in reaction and kinetics and adoptions of swirl
x

burners, two-stage combustion, gas-turbine-like combustor, and dedicated low-NO ammonia gas turbine
x

combustor. Some realistic options to introduce ammonia combustion are ammonia co-firing in the existing coal
power plant and retrofitting the natural gas in the gas turbine using the premix fuel of ammonia and methane.
However, in the future, it is expected that dedicated combustion of ammonia can be adopted toward the realization
of a zero-carbon society.
Introduction
The increase of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere has led to serious environmental concerns throughout
the globe. This phenomenon has led to several problems, including climate change, global warming, and ocean level
rise [1]. The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has issued 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and
169 targets to tackle these global problems. Sustainable energy (SDG 7) is considered an essential key to the
successful realization of Agenda 2030, which has three main objectives: (a) the creation of a modern energy system
that is affordable, reliable, and accessible universally, (b) increase of renewable energy share in the energy mix, and
(c) significant improvement in the energy efficiency [2]. The issue related to energy availability is exceptionally
essential as it deals strongly with economic growth and human life quality. Global energy consumption has
increased from 408 EJ in 2000 to 585 EJ in 2019, with an annual increase of about 2% [3]. In the future, this
increase in energy demand must be in parallel with the adoption of a zero-carbon energy system to realize high
energy sustainability, including energy security, energy equity, and environmental sustainability.
The share of renewable energy sources must be increased significantly. However, these energy sources cannot be
directly utilized as fuel in various applications [4]; hence, they must be converted to secondary energy sources which
are ready and convenient for utilization. Non-carbon-based secondary energy sources cover different forms,
including electricity, chemical energy, and heat. Although electricity is convenient and exergetically efficient,
different energy forms (especially chemical energy) are required from an energy security point of view. In addition,
the massive adoption of renewable energy, including solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, and biomass, urgently requires
various secondary energy sources, which can facilitate the storage and transportation of these renewables and
support their massive adoption. Non-carbon-based chemical fuels include hydrogen (H ), ammonia (NH ), and
2 3

metal fuels. Metal fuels, such as aluminum, iron, and magnesium, are potential due to their high energy density, and
their oxidation does not release any harmful gases (e.g., SO and NO ) [5,6]. They can react with gaseous water,
x x

generating a large amount of heat. However, metal fuels face several challenges, including thermodynamic
limitations, handling and transportation, and mechanical problems during utilization [7]. Hydrogen owns various
advantages of high combustion performance, broad range production and utilization technologies, and high
conversion efficiency [8]. Although hydrogen has a very high gravimetric energy density (lower heating value of
120 MJ/kg), its volumetric energy density is extremely low, only 3 Wh/L at ambient conditions. Therefore, hydrogen
must be effectively stored in different methods, including compression, liquefaction, hydrides, adsorption, and
reformed fuels. Ammonia has received intensive attention among those storage methods due to its high gravimetric
and volumetric hydrogen densities, excellent storability, and carbon-free characteristic [9].
According to Wijayanta et al. [10], the final cost of hydrogen stored in ammonia (in which ammonia is directly
utilized without decomposition) is the lowest compared to other methods of storage (24.5 and 20.9 JPY/m in 20303
and 2050, respectively) [10]. As a reformed fuel from hydrogen, ammonia is also carbon-free and has a very high
hydrogen density of 107.3 kg-H /m at its liquid condition [11]; hence, its utilization potentially results in zero
2
3

CO emission. Furthermore, ammonia handling and transportation are convenient, and the infrastructure is well-
2

established. In order to realize a high density of storage, ammonia can be stored in its liquid condition by lowering
the temperature to −33 °C (at 1 atm) or increasing its pressure to 0.99 MPa (at 25 °C) [12]. In addition, it is also can
be decomposed to hydrogen initially, and the produced hydrogen is utilized as fuel, although its decomposition to
hydrogen is very energy-intensive (30.6 kJ/mol-H ).2

Ammonia is widely used in various industries. It serves as a fertilizer ingredient and plays a role in water treatment,
pharmaceutical manufacturing, textile dyeing, and metal processing. Ammonia is currently being explored for future
utilization in several areas. One potential application is as a carbon-free fuel for power generation and
transportation. Ammonia can be burned in combustion engines or used in fuel cells, offering a cleaner alternative to
fossil fuels [13,14]. Ammonia is also considered a promising fuel for the marine transportation and aviation industry
due to its potential to reduce emissions. Ammonia is gaining favor as a cleaner fuel to power cargo ships in the
marine transportation industry, although significant technical and safety challenges still need to be addressed. A
recent study presented a novel bottom-up assessment of emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols in the maritime
sector, which included three scenarios in which the global fleet runs in its entirety with one of the potential fuel
substitutes: low-sulfur diesel, liquefied natural gas (LNG), and ammonia [15]. Hyeon et al. [16] proposed a fuel
supply system that controls carbon emissions in dual-fuel propulsion engines using LNG and ammonia. The system
consists of independent fuel supplies for LNG and ammonia, creating a hybrid configuration. They revealed that the
hybrid system could achieve a significant reduction of 70% in specific power consumption for a 40% carbon
reduction target by 2030. In addition, a comprehensive set of experiments was conducted to investigate the impact
of ammonia volume fraction and excess air ratio on the performance and emission characteristics of a marine spark-
ignition engine [17]. The study explored how varying these parameters affects the engine's operation.
Furthermore, most airports would require a means to connect to the established ammonia infrastructure within the
aviation industry. It implies that airports need access to the existing facilities and systems that handle ammonia,
such as storage tanks, pipelines, and distribution networks [18]. There is ongoing development of aircraft powered
by ammonia, as seen in initiatives like the Zero-carbon Ammonia-Powered Turboelectric propulsion project
(ZAPturbo). Adopting liquid ammonia entails lower mass penalties than liquid hydrogen due to its higher density
(730 kg/m³). This attribute makes liquid ammonia an attractive alternative for aviation applications [19]. Mitigation
technologies and specialized materials are needed to address emission and onboard safety concerns, including
NO reduction and corrosion resistance. Ammonia utilization generally faces challenges related to its high auto-
x

ignition temperature, high minimum ignition energy, and low flame speed, leading to limitations and difficulties
during ammonia combustion. Recently, numerous efforts have been conducted to answer those limitations. This
study reviews ammonia combustion for use in the energy system. Section 2 focuses on the characteristics of
ammonia in terms of its possible adoption as energy and hydrogen storage. Section 3 describes ammonia's possible
production and utilization technologies, including some developed projects for advanced ammonia utilization.
Section 4 focuses on combustion and flame characteristics, detailed NO formation, and efforts to improve
x

combustion performance and reduce NO formation. Section 5 overviews further opportunities in the utilization of
x

ammonia as fuel and some updates correlated to the retrofitting efforts to further enhance the utilization of
ammonia as fuel. Finally, section 6 provides the concluding points from the reviews throughout the paper.

Section snippets

Ammonia as energy and hydrogen storage

Ammonia is colorless, lighter than air, has high water solubility, and is characterized by its pungent smell. The
current global annual ammonia production is about 150 Mt [20]. It is the cheapest form of combined nitrogen, and
its application as raw material dominates more than 75% of whole nitrogenous products. About 80% of ammonia is
used for fertilizer production [21]. Other ammonia utilization includes nitric acid, explosives, refrigerant (liquid
ammonia), and fuel. Due to these broad and

Ammonia production technologies

Among ammonia production (synthesis) technologies, up to now, a thermochemical process is the most feasible way
to produce ammonia at an industrial level. The Haber-Bosch process is currently the most widely adopted ammonia
synthesis process. It was successfully developed in early 1908 b y Fritz Haber and Carl Bosh after intensive research
for materials with acceptable catalytic performance. The Haber-Bosch process could generate 20 t/d of ammonia at
the earlier industrial scale. It currently
Combustion of ammonia
As briefly introduced, ammonia has a promising potential as fuel for direct utilization based on the combustion
process. However, there is a fundamental difference between the combustion mechanism and characteristics of
ammonia and hydrocarbon fuel or hydrogen. In this section, the combustion reaction of ammonia is described,
including the combustion and flame characteristics that determine the overall energy conversion efficiency of the
system. Several investigations related to ammonia

Ammonia utilization as fuel

Even though ammonia has a disadvantage due to combustion characteristics and relatively high NO emission, the
x

government and companies have not stopped developing the utilization of ammonia gasses as combustion fuel. This
section will focus on the initiative governments and companies took and the application and study of the existing
commercialized power generation technology, which is further modified to comply with ammonia combustion.

Conclusion
As an effective hydrogen storage medium, ammonia is considered promising to be adopted due to high gravimetric
and volumetric hydrogen densities, non-carbon, possible direct utilization, technological maturity, and wide
applications. However, ammonia also faces some challenges, including high energy for synthesis, lower heating
value, higher auto-ignition temperature, higher flashpoint, higher minimum ignition energy, and lower laminar
burning velocity. The slow flame speed of ammonia

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgment
This research was supported by the JST/JICA SATREPS program (grant number: JPMJSA2204) and The Thermal
& Electric Energy Technology Foundation, Japan.
References (224)
 D. Gielen et al.
The role of renewable energy in the global energy transformation
Energy Strategy Rev.
(2019)
 A. Davoodabadi et al.
The potential of hydrogen hydrate as a future hydrogen storage medium
iScience
(2021)
 J.M. Bergthorson
Recyclable metal fuels for clean and compact zero-carbon power
Prog. Energy Combust. Sci.
(2018)
 J. Wang et al.
Investigation of nozzle two-phase flow characteristics for nanometer aluminum powder combustion in a metal fuel motor
Powder Technol.
(2018)
 K.T. Møller et al.
Hydrogen - a sustainable energy carrier
Prog. Nat. Sci.: Mater. Int.
(2017)
 A.T. Wijayanta et al.
Liquid hydrogen, methylcyclohexane, and ammonia as potential hydrogen storage: comparison review
Int. J. Hydrogen Energy
(2019)
 A. Yapicioglu et al.
A review on clean ammonia as a potential fuel for power generators
Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev.
(2019)
  A. Afif et al.
Ammonia-fed fuel cells: a comprehensive review
Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev.
(2016)
 D. Wang et al.
Numerical study of the premixed ammonia-hydrogen combustion under engine-relevant conditions
Int. J. Hydrogen Energy
(2021)
 W. Wei et al.
Effects of ammonia addition on the performance and emissions for a spark-ignition marine natural gas engine
Energy
(2023)
View more references

Cited by (19)

 Systematic review on ammonia as a sustainable fuel for combustion

2024, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews
Show abstract
 3D numerical study of NH<inf>3</inf>/H<inf>2</inf> MILD combustion in a reversed flow MILD combustion furnace
2024, Applied Thermal Engineering
Show abstract
 Visualization of liquid ammonia spray using 2p-SLIPI and comparison of liquid ammonia spray and gaseous ammonia
combustion in a swirl combustor at atmospheric pressure
2024, Fuel
Show abstract
 Effects of ammonia energy fraction on combustion stability and emissions characteristics of naturally aspired industrial
dual-fuel diesel engine
2024, Energy Conversion and Management
 Show abstract
 Adoption of advanced coal gasification: A panacea to carbon footprint reduction and hydrogen economy transition in South
Africa
2024, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy
Show abstract
 Life cycle assessment of ammonia co-firing power plants: A comprehensive review and analysis from a whole industrial
chain perspective
2024, Advances in Applied Energy
Show abstract
View all citing articles on Scopus