A Scenario for a Carbon‐Neutral Ammonia‐Fueled Engine Mediated by Catalytic NH<sub>3</sub> Cracking and CO<sub>2</sub> Hydrogenation

Abstract Utilizing near zero‐carbon NH 3 as fuel in engines is promising for carbon‐neutrality. However, the application of NH 3 into the engine suffers from the intrinsic poor combustion characteristics of NH 3 and the emission of harmful NO x exhausts. Herein, we proposed and successfully confirmed a novel scenario for converting a conventional “CH 4 ‐fueled” engine to “NH 3 ‐fueled” engine. Specifically, CH 4 was used to power the internal combustion engine and release CO 2 as the exhaust. Afterwards, we put forward two routes to convert the exhaust and NH 3 into N 2 and CH 4 for enclosing the carbon cycle. The first “spatially decoupled” route splits the exhaust treatment into NH 3 cracking over Ru clusters on the calcined Mg−Al hydrotalcite (Ru/MAO) and CO 2 methanation over a commercial Ni/Al 2 O 3 . Both NH 3 and CO 2 were almost completely converted into the target products under their respective optimal conditions. The second “spatially coupled” route refers to an one‐pot reaction of NH 3 and CO 2 into N 2 , CH 4 , and H 2 O. Due to the mismatch of reaction conditions and the competitive adsorption of reactants, the conversions of NH 3 and CO 2 were lowered to 80.1 % and 49.3 %, respectively, over Ru/MAO under 1 bar (CO 2 :NH 3 =3 : 8) at 550 °C.

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Publication Details

Journal
Angewandte Chemie
Published
2024-11-22
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/ange.202420292
Citations
2
Primary Topic
Ammonia Synthesis and Nitrogen Reduction
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.21

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article

A Scenario for a Carbon‐Neutral Ammonia‐Fueled Engine Mediated by Catalytic NH3 Cracking and CO2 Hydrogenation

Feng Zeng, Gang Pei, Xiao‐Kang Liu, Jing‐Pei Cao et al.
2 citations
Angewandte Chemie
Ammonia Synthesis and Nitrogen Reduction
0.21
article

A Scenario for a Carbon‐Neutral Ammonia‐Fueled Engine Mediated by Catalytic NH3 Cracking and CO2 Hydrogenation

Feng Zeng, Gang Pei, Xiao‐Kang Liu, Jing‐Pei Cao, Jie Ren, Hao Lou, Jie Zeng, Chalachew Mebrahtu, Zhandong Wang, Yu Wang, Tao Yao, Weili Zhou, Hongliang Li
article en
2 citations

Abstract

Abstract Utilizing near zero‐carbon NH 3 as fuel in engines is promising for carbon‐neutrality. However, the application of NH 3 into the engine suffers from the intrinsic poor combustion characteristics of NH 3 and the emission of harmful NO x exhausts. Herein, we proposed and successfully confirmed a novel scenario for converting a conventional “CH 4 ‐fueled” engine to “NH 3 ‐fueled” engine. Specifically, CH 4 was used to power the internal combustion engine and release CO 2 as the exhaust. Afterwards, we put forward two routes to convert the exhaust and NH 3 into N 2 and CH 4 for enclosing the carbon cycle. The first “spatially decoupled” route splits the exhaust treatment into NH 3 cracking over Ru clusters on the calcined Mg−Al hydrotalcite (Ru/MAO) and CO 2 methanation over a commercial Ni/Al 2 O 3 . Both NH 3 and CO 2 were almost completely converted into the target products under their respective optimal conditions. The second “spatially coupled” route refers to an one‐pot reaction of NH 3 and CO 2 into N 2 , CH 4 , and H 2 O. Due to the mismatch of reaction conditions and the competitive adsorption of reactants, the conversions of NH 3 and CO 2 were lowered to 80.1 % and 49.3 %, respectively, over Ru/MAO under 1 bar (CO 2 :NH 3 =3 : 8) at 550 °C.

Angewandte ChemieVol. 137(8)
Sinopec (China) (CN), University of Science and Technology of China (CN), Nanjing Tech University (CN), China University of Mining and Technology (CN), Hefei National Center for Physical Sciences at Nanoscale (CN), National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (CN), State Key Laboratory of Materials-Oriented Chemical Engineering, RWTH Aachen University (DE), Anhui University of Technology (CN)
Natural Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars of Anhui Province, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Key Technologies Research and Development Program, Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars
Openalex Percentile: Top 58%
Ammonia Synthesis and Nitrogen Reduction
0.21
DOISourceOpenAlex
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