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Prospects of Green Ammonia For Fertilizer Production: Dr. S. Nand

The document discusses the prospects of using green ammonia for fertilizer production in India. It notes that ammonia is currently produced using natural gas, which emits carbon dioxide. Green ammonia produced from renewable energy such as solar and wind using electrolysis is seen as a promising carbon-free alternative. While green ammonia production faces economic challenges, it could help reduce India's carbon footprint and dependence on imported natural gas or ammonia if costs become competitive. Production and use of green ammonia both as a feedstock and energy source could help make India self-reliant for its energy and fertilizer needs.

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Minhquang Ngo
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34 views

Prospects of Green Ammonia For Fertilizer Production: Dr. S. Nand

The document discusses the prospects of using green ammonia for fertilizer production in India. It notes that ammonia is currently produced using natural gas, which emits carbon dioxide. Green ammonia produced from renewable energy such as solar and wind using electrolysis is seen as a promising carbon-free alternative. While green ammonia production faces economic challenges, it could help reduce India's carbon footprint and dependence on imported natural gas or ammonia if costs become competitive. Production and use of green ammonia both as a feedstock and energy source could help make India self-reliant for its energy and fertilizer needs.

Uploaded by

Minhquang Ngo
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Indian Journal of Fertilisers 18 (5) : 434-435, May, 2022

Prospects of Green Ammonia for Fertilizer Production


at present is derived mainly from natural gas.
This also generates carbon dioxide both as feed
and fuel. Carbon dioxide generated from feed gas
is completely converted to urea-the most popular
Frank Notes

fertilizer used in India. Only carbon dioxide


generated from fuel natural gas is let off to
atmosphere. About 2 MT of carbon dioxide is
generated in production of 1 tonne of ammonia.
Of this, 1.4 MT carbon dioxide is converted to
urea. It may also be clarified that pure hydrogen
is nowhere present and it is always present in a
mixture alongwith carbon dioxide and nitrogen.
However, technology for production of ammonia
Dr. S. Nand from pure hydrogen is well established.

Storage and transportation of hydrogen still has


various challenges including that of safety and
India has done well during last five years by infrastructure. But storage and transportation of
achieving an installed power generation capacity ammonia though requires elaborate
of 110 GW from renewable resources. There is arrangements, has been well established. Large
target of achieving 500 GW installed capacity by quantities of ammonia are transported by road
2030. There is now focus on utilization of green or rail tankers and ships throughout the world.
power for decarbonization of economy in Therefore, ammonia can not only be used as feed
consonance with our commitment in meetings of in chemical industry but can also work as energy
COP-25 in Paris and COP-26 in Glasgow. There carrier. Energy density of ammonia being thrice
are issues in utilization of green power due to that of compressed hydrogen makes it better
variation in generation and connecting with the option as source of energy.
grid for transmission to consumption centres.
Utilization of the stranded green power for In India, we produced 15.3 million tonnes (million
production of hydrogen is a promising option. MT) of ammonia in 2020-21 which was mainly
Hydrogen then can be used as source of energy used for production of urea. Production of urea
and also as feed for production of a variety of requires captive production of ammonia and
chemical products. At present, hydrogen is carbon dioxide. About 2.6 million MT of ammonia
generated using fossil fuels mainly natural gas. was imported to produce various grades of
This is called grey hydrogen. Generation of complex fertilizers in the country where carbon
hydrogen with renewable energy is called green dioxide is not required.
hydrogen. Green hydrogen will play an
There are two possibilities of replacing grey
important role in reducing carbon footprint of
hydrogen with green hydrogen in fertilizer
our economy. Hon’ble Prime Minister launched
production. From technology point of view it is
the National Hydrogen Mission on India’s 75 th
quite feasible to utilize green ammonia in
Independence Day.
production of complex fertilizers and ammonium
There are various industries like refineries, sulphate. These products consume yearly about
fertilizers, steel, etc. which can use green 3 million MT of ammonia equivalent to about half
hydrogen. Fertilizer industry is one of the largest a million tonne of hydrogen. Ammonia can be
user of hydrogen for production of ammonia. procured from any source to produce these
Ammonia is the essential input for production of fertilizers. But economics of use of green
all nitrogen containing fertilizers viz. urea, ammonia has to be worked out. The second option
ammonium sulphate, ammonium chloride and is to use green ammonia for production of urea.
various grades of NP/NPK complex fertilizers. In case of production of grey ammonia, carbon
Hydrogen required for production of ammonia dioxide is generated in situ and its recovery from

6
May 2022 435

{ }
‘waiver of inter-state transmission charges for a
Production and use of period of 25 years to the producer of green
green ammonia both as hydrogen’. This alongwith other concessions
feed and source of energy provided in the policy will reduce the delivered
cost of green electricity for green hydrogen
will help India to be
producers. Production of hydrogen through
‘Aatma Nirbhar ’ for her electrolysis route is highly capital intensive. It is
need of energy and hoped that government will take steps to
fertilizers. encourage domestic production to reduce cost of
e l e c t r o l y z e r s . F i n a l l y, p r o d u c t i o n o f g r e e n
feed gas mixture is part of ammonia production. ammonia will require installation of air
Since there is no co-production of carbon dioxide separation plant for generation of nitrogen for
in production of green ammonia, one has to synthesis of ammonia from a mixture of hydrogen
recover carbon dioxide from other sources viz. and nitrogen. If the cost of hydrogen is
furnace or boiler flue gases. Needless to mention competitive with grey hydrogen, cost of
that it will be additional cost. Such a source ammonia will also be competitive with ammonia
should be available on the same site because produced from natural gas.
compression and transportation of carbon
dioxide will require new infrastructure and will The other important consideration in production
add to the cost of carbon dioxide significantly. It of both green hydrogen and green ammonia is
means one has to necessarily have fossil fuel steady availability of green electricity on 24 hour
based utilities at the site. basis in all seasons. Since there will be huge
fluctuation in availability of power, downstream
The existing ammonia- urea plants are highly electolyser and ammonia plants will have to be
integrated and involve multiple processing steps carefully designed. In case of ammonia, the plant
for production of ammonia and urea. It is often has to be so designed that it can operate at wide
suggested that green hydrogen can partially range of designed capacity. Another solution is
repl ace the grey hydrogen for product io n o f that plant can operate in hybrid mode i.e. using
ammonia in the plants. This will reduce urea mixture of green and grey hydrogen. Storage of
production due to non-availability of sufficient green electricity and hydrogen are the other
carbon dioxide. Recovery of carbon dioxide from o p t i o n s . O b v i o u s l y, o n e h a s t o u t i l i z e
furnace flue gases will increase the cost of combination of all these options to improve the
production of urea. But the more important techno-economic viability of green hydrogen/
aspect is that partial use of green hydrogen will ammonia projects.
require modifications in equipments and
operation of the plant affecting the energy In view of steep increase in cost of energy from
efficiency of ammonia production. Therefore, one conventional sources, green energy offers an
has to be extremely cautious while implementing opportunity not only to decarbonize the economy
any scheme of use of green hydrogen in existing but also provide substitution to imported
integrated ammonia-urea plants. e n e r g y, i m p o r t e d a m m o n i a a n d i m p o r t e d
fertilizers. To begin with, green ammonia can be
As far as economics of production of green utilized for production of complex fertilizers.
ammonia is concerned, there are three distinct Further policy support will be required to make
e l e m e n t s ; d e l i ve r e d c o s t o f g r e e n e l e c t r i c i t y, production and use of green hydrogen and green
production cost of green hydrogen and finally cost ammonia a viable proposition. Production and
of production of green ammonia. Government of use of green ammonia both as feed and source of
India has already notified Green Hydrogen Policy energy will help India to be ‘Aatma Nirbhar ’ for
on 17 th February, 2022. The policy provides for her need of energy and fertilizers.

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