Less Energy, More Food: Ammonia Production

With the current population of the world expected to grow past 11 billion by 2100, the question of how to feed everyone arises. A solution to that is to grow more food with the help of fertilizers made from ammonia. Current ammonia production methods are energy intensive and contribute to 1.3 % of global carbon emissions. The traditional synthesis of ammonia uses the Haber-Bosch process, which can produce large amounts of ammonia. But, uses natural gas to produce hydrogen, which produces carbon emissions. Furthermore, this process produces ammonia at extremely high pressures of 400 atm, for explosion prevention, which increases the capital cost. Our method is to use energy from renewable resources such as solar power, to help lower our carbon footprint as well as a new separation method to increase energy savings. We will be obtaining our raw materials, hydrogen and nitrogen, from electrolysis of water and a pressure swing air separation unit. Our process uses pressure swing absorbers as our separation method as opposed to the traditional refrigerated condensation method. Our method will separate ammonia from hydrogen and nitrogen more efficiently and boasts lower operating costs. However, the single-pass conversion in our process is lower compared to the Haber-Bosch process due to lower reactor pressures. We will be basing our design on a small-scale pilot study and increasing it to an industrial scale by producing 400 metric tons of ammonia per day.