Description
The availability of large quantities of “green” hydrogen is crucial on the road to decarbonizing the German economy. However, as the national production of green hydrogen in Germany is not sufficient for the national decarbonization targets, the German government is relying on extensive imports from regions with cheap renewable energies. The conversion of hydrogen into ammonia, which has a high hydrogen density, makes sense for energy-efficient hydrogen transportation. The hydrogen is recovered from ammonia at the destination by means of ammonia cracking. Ammonia cracking has so far only been used industrially for small niche applications, with only small hydrogen flows (typical size: 1-2 tons per day). Against the background of national climate protection targets, the desired reduction in CO2 emissions and the tight supply situation for energy raw materials, the HyPAC research project aims to transform the German economy on a hydrogen basis. As part of HyPAC, a new process for producing hydrogen from ammonia is to be developed and demonstrated for the first time in a mini plant. The project aims at an industrial, easily scalable and energy-efficient ammonia cracking process to produce hydrogen on a large scale (~ 500 tons per day) in high purity and at attractive price paths centrally and to provide it for large industrial customers, such as the chemical industry, hydrogen pipeline network or gas turbines.
As part of the project, the Chair of Plant and Process Engineering is involved in the experimental investigation of catalysts and ideal process conditions. In addition, reactor and process models are being created to enable a techno-economic investigation. For this purpose, the entire process is also simulated, taking energy integration into account. A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is prepared using these basic principles.
