Because of the lower thermodynamic requirements to oxidize ammonia compared to water, solar cells with smaller open circuit voltages can provide the required potential for ammonia splitting.
A solar to ammonia efficiency of 15.6 % is achieved, which is 4.6 % higher than the state-of-the-art efficiency of solar-driven electrochemical synthesis of ammonia. By analyzing the Sankey diagram, the energy loss of photovoltaic cells and the heat losses contribute more than 63 % of the total solar input.
There has been much research conducted on producing green ammonia with solar energy, e.g., the photocatalysis, solar-driven electrocatalysis, plasma catalysis to ammonia and electrochemical lithium cycle .
With this as motivation, we develop an energy-efficient and durable ammonia electrolyzer with an energy consumption of 0.84 kWh Nm −3 H 2 and a continuous operation for 317 h at 100 mA cm −2. In addition, we also innovate a tandem cell to produce hydrogen without any electric power supply by coupling fuel-cell and electrolysis technologies.
In this paper, a novel full-spectrum solar-driven SOEC coupled with Haber-Bosch process is proposed for green ammonia production. The solar-to-ammonia (STA) efficiency of the proposed system is compared with the state-of-the-art efficiency.
We find that ammonia electrolysis has a significant economic advantage thanks to its low energy consumption and capital cost. With this as motivation, we develop an energy-efficient and durable ammonia electrolyzer with an energy consumption of 0.84 kWh Nm −3 H 2 and a continuous operation for 317 h at 100 mA cm −2.
Besides, hydrogen with a fraction of nitrogen could be used for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, which are generally very sensitive to fuel purity, further showing the application scalability of an ammonia electrolyzer. We next looked into the Faradaic efficiency of the ammonia electrolyzer.
Contact us for competitive quotes on any of our containerized energy storage and energy management solutions
Get a Quote