What are the prospects for the application of ammonia energy?

The automobile industry is the second largest industry in the world after petrochemical industry. Traditional fuel vehicles not only consume a large amount of non-renewable oil resources, but also cause serious environmental pollution and greenhouse effect. In the face of the global problems of depletion of fossil fuels and rising oil prices, as well as the damage to human ecological environment caused by automobile exhaust, the development of low-carbon renewable clean energy and accelerating the popularization of new energy vehicles is an inevitable trend for the sustainable development of the entire automotive industry.

Hydrogen has long been regarded as the most ideal clean energy source, and it is the key research object of many countries' energy development strategies. Hydrogen has a high calorific value per unit mass, about three times that of gasoline; the combustion product is mainly water, which is non-polluting to the environment and can be recycled. However, hydrogen is not easy to liquefy, the conditions and cost of storage and transportation are high; it is easy to explode, with low safety; as a fuel application requires large-scale construction of hydrogen refueling stations, with a huge investment of funds and other key issues have not yet been solved, and the large-scale use of hydrogen as a power source for automobiles has been seriously constrained.

Ammonia is also a carbon-free compound that produces only water and nitrogen and a small amount of nitrogen oxides when burned, and can be used as a clean energy source to replace fossil fuels. The energy density of ammonia is higher than that of gasoline, methanol and other fuels; it has a high octane number and is easy to be compressed and liquefied, so it is safe and convenient to be stored and transported; and when it is replenished, the infrastructure of the existing gas stations can meet the demand for liquid ammonia refueling. In addition, ammonia as a hydrogen-rich compounds (containing hydrogen mass fraction of 17.6%), can also be used as raw materials for fuel cell hydrogen. Synthetic ammonia is one of the world's largest production of chemical products, production, storage and transportation and supply process is mature, well-equipped. Taken together, ammonia fuel is a realistic alternative to fossil energy sources for energy supply in automobile engines.