The foul-smelling fuel that could power big ships
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
Compared to ammonia and methanol, formic acid is less energy dense, but due to recent advances in catalysts it has the potential for simpler and smaller systems in less demanding circumstances (heat, pressure) [1].
The only party I know of that is trying to bring this to market is Dens [2], formed out of a student group at the University of Eindhoven [3]. Their website is a bit high on the rhetoric (including trying to coin "hydrozine"), and their mockups looks like, well, mockups, but there are real technology advances behind this, for example their trial with a city bus [4] (Dutch).
[1] https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110536423-002
[2] https://dens.one/products/
[3] https://teamfast.nl/technology/
[4] https://web.archive.org/web/20200808210727/https://www.volks...
The next great thing is that, made under a wind farm, it is directly useful, on the regular farm often found underneath, as both fuel and fertilizer. Excess can be sold to the next farm over. So, no fuel or fertilizer transport costs.
The third is that it provides a sink for power generation a long ways away from any power grid termination. So, it opens up huge swaths of territory where windmills would not be built, despite plentiful wind and space.
It also is used as a stimulant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smelling_salts:
“They are also used as a form of stimulant in athletic competitions (such as powerlifting, strong man and ice hockey) to "wake up" competitors to perform better. In 2005, Michael Strahan estimated that 70–80% of National Football League players were using smelling salts as stimulants.”
It didn't smell great, but we didn't die.
Everyone who has encountered the smell of urine has inhaled some ammonia fumes too.
Okay I'm obviously being hyperbolic, there is still soil bacteria. But cool is not the word I would use to describe such a practice...
Use of ammonia fixed by local wind power should be less objectionable than numerous other common farm "inputs". In particular, injecting nitrogen deep under the surface should result in much less nitrate-saturated runoff to streams and thus, ultimately, algae blooms offshore, than we get with spraying.
That said, the tragic loss of buckwheat from world diets is a direct consequence if it not yielding more in response to fertilizers. That is tragic because it has better protein than any other grain. A buckwheat that produces more when fertilized would be a great gift to the world.
The thought of working in the confines of a ship's engine room with such a hazardous fuel is horrifying. One reason for the widespread use of diesel oil is that it's relatively safe for human operatives.
The same goes for filling a gas can at the station to transport to the boat to fill its tank. I would not spill a drop of gas, and driving it home I'd have all the windows open on the car and drive with my head out the window and it would still make me sick.
Ammonia concentrated for use as fuel (or other industrial processes) is not the same thing as window cleaner, just as hydrogen peroxide concentrated for use as rocket fuel is far, far more dangerous than the hydrogen peroxide diluted for use in first aid kits.
When I asked him some question about this potential disaster, he said "Ah don't worry about it, you'll be blind from the ammonia anyway." Yeesh.
It might be simpler to require cleaner marine fuel, but marine fuel is currently a polluter at a large multiple of its share of greenhouse gas emissions.
Also, ammonia is a very good candidate for an economically viable energy storage and transport medium for renewable energy generation. Hydrogen is expensive to store and embrittles metal containers and pipelines.
Edit: Upon rereading, I found that the article actually states: "There are challenges. Burning ammonia can create polluting nitrous oxides, therefore the exhaust needs cleaning up", which would indicate they're burning it. So either the reporter misunderstood or it's really a non-innovation then.
Excess CO2 is not especially harmful to humans in the short term (unless you are in a confined area), but it does contribute to global climate change.
The good news is that catalytic converters to destroy NOx are established technology, and they happen to use ammonia as a reductant. This is definitely doable for ships, probably doable for heavy trucks, and a bit annoying for smaller cars.
Fuel leaks would be a disaster.
Not at all. Fuel leaks are a disaster today.
Ammonia is different. It will dissolve into water, get diluted quickly, and bacteria will degrade it. A fuel leak on an ammonia fueled ship is just like fish peeing into the water. Admittedly, a whole lot of fish, so it's still a local problem that takes a while to solve itself.
Likewise, a fuel spill on land would be a brief local problem. Today, if a truck spill its guts, we have to scramble to absorb the fuel oil before it contaminates soil or gets into the sewage system. With ammonia, we'd just flush it down with an excess of water. In soil, it is fertilizer, and in a sewage treatment plant, it gets biodegraded.
The Haber-Bosch process isn't very energy efficient, though.
Looks like ammonia is mostly produced from hydrogen stripped from natural gas: https://cen.acs.org/environment/green-chemistry/Industrial-a...
The Chinese are doing a great deal of good work developing catalysts.
Hydrogen liquefaction is less than 50% energy efficient. Haber-Bosch compares favorably to that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiteprint
were made from transparent originals using UV lamps on paper that developed through being exposed to ammonia vapours.
Any architect/engineer would have (instead of a plotter) one of these machines, with a transparent glass or perspex/lexan pipe with inside one, two or three UV "neon" tubes in which you fed the transparent coupled with the reactive paper, a motor and a large belt would make the paper travel some 270 ° around the UV illuminated pipe, thus impressing the paper.
Higher end machines had an internal "developing station" (basically a perforated pipe inside which small quantities (drops) of ammonia were slowly pumped and around which only the UV impressed paper passed), and there was a fan extracting air to a vent pipe leading outside.
The earlier and lower end machines had a separate "developing station" consisting in a box (more sort of a large pipe) with a container of ammonia on top and a flap like door on the bottom through which you inserted the UV impressed paper rolled up. There was a small tap to regulate a flow of drops of ammonia from the container into the box/pipe.
The first kind of machine, if properly operated, was almost odourless because the ammonia vapours were distributed on the paper and the fan did take out most of what was not absorbed by the paper, the second was a nightmare, the inside of the box/pipe was impregnated with a lot of ammonia (as the copy was rolled and had to be developed everywhere) and everytime you opened the flap (to remove already developed copies or to insert one to be developed) if you didn't hold your breath and/or you weren't very quick you would taste it for good, and anyway often you opened just a little too much the little tap and the copy would be wet from ammonia.