The European Union framework program for research and innovation, “Horizon 2020,” is providing a grant of approximately DKK 21 million (approximately $3.4 million at current exchange rates) to help a research team at Denmark’s Aarhus University lead a global collaboration aiming to develop new technologies to produce green ammonia.
The research project at the university’s Department of Biological and Chemical Engineering will look at three different new technologies, one of these being an upgrade of the existing Haber-Bosch reactor process, which is the current primary method of producing ammonia. World ammonia production was 182.8 million mt in 2019, according to IFA data – production that currently is far from being sustainable or carbon-free.
It is reported that the team of researchers will look at a Haber-Bosch reactor based on heat from electro-magnetic induction instead of the current heat from incineration. The two other technologies that will be analyzed and assessed are reported to be a plasma-assisted electro-catalytic concept, and an electro-catalytic concept that uses a special catalyst to catalyze ammonia from nitrogen and water at room temperatures.