Environmental life cycle assessment of ammonia‐based electricity

Boero, Andrea J., Kardux, Kevin, Kovaleva, Marina, Salas, Daniel A., Mooijer, Jacco, Mashruk, Syed, Townsend, Michael, Rouwenhorst, Kevin, Valera Medina, Agustin and Ramirez, Angel D. 2021. Environmental life cycle assessment of ammonia‐based electricity. Energies 14 (20) , 6721. 10.3390/en14206721

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Abstract

In recent years, several researchers have studied the potential use of ammonia (NH3) as an energy vector, focused on the techno-economic advantages and challenges for full global deployment. The use of ammonia as fuel is seen as a strategy to support decarbonization; however, to confirm the sustainability of the shift to ammonia as fuel in thermal engines, a study of the environmental profile is needed. This paper aims to assess the environmental life cycle impacts of ammonia-based electricity generated in a combined heat and power cycle for different ammonia production pathways. A cradle-to-gate assessment was developed for both ammonia production and ammonia-based electricity generation. The results show that electrolysis-based ammonia from renewable and nuclear energy have a better profile in terms of global warming potential (0.09–0.70 t CO2-eq/t NH3), fossil depletion potential (3.62–213.56 kg oil-eq/t NH3), and ozone depletion potential (0.001–0.082 g CFC-11-eq/t NH3). In addition, surplus heat for district or industrial applications offsets some of the environmental burden, such as a more than 29% reduction in carbon footprint. In general, ammonia-based combined heat and power production presents a favorable environmental profile, for example, the carbon footprint ranges from −0.480 to 0.003 kg CO2-eq/kWh.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Engineering
Additional Information:	This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/license s/by/4.0/)
Publisher:	MDPI
ISSN:	1996-1073
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	15 October 2021
Date of Acceptance:	12 October 2021
Last Modified:	31 Jan 2022 08:13
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/144877

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