World’s first ammonia-electric semi packs as much energy as the Tesla

Ammonia is in many ways a better store for hydrogen than hydrogen itself, and could help clean up some challenging industries that require high-density energy. , unveiled the world’s first ammonia-powered semi-truck.

Ammonia has two advantages over hydrogen as an energy carrier. One is the fact that it is liquid at ambient temperature and pressure levels, making it very easy to store, transport and handle. Hydrogen must be either heavily compressed to about 700 bar or cryogenically cooled to just 20.28 K (−252.87 °C; −423.17 °F) while still liquid. Both of these are energy-intensive processes. The second is the amount of energy. It is about three times the volume of hydrogen gas and more than 20 times the weight of current lithium batteries.

It is clean to produce and can be used as fuel in many ways. Many of them produce zero harmful or climate-related emissions. Despite some drawbacks, green ammonia is a promising clean fuel alternative for industries such as transportation, aviation, and other applications where batteries or hydrogen gas cannot carry enough energy to get the job done. It is considered a commodity.

Amogy was founded in 2020 to accelerate the development of green ammonia to power clean transportation. According to the company, by July 2021 he will have flown a 5 kW ammonia drone, and by May 2022 he will soon be flying a 100 kW ammonia tractor.

Now, the company has scaled up its ammonia powertrain to 300 kW and announced what it claims to be “the world’s first ammonia-powered zero-emission semi-truck.” 2018 Freightliner Cascadia Class 8 trucks are modified with an ammonia fuel system. Suspended under the cabin and stacked behind it, it appeared to add no bulk to a standard truck.

It can fill up in 8 minutes and carry around 900 kWh of ‘stored net electrical energy’. That’s about the same amount of energy the Tesla Semi stores in its lithium battery pack. Amogy says the company’s “carbon-free energy system…has five times higher system-level energy density compared to lithium batteries,” so you can expect this cab to be significantly lighter than Tesla’s. .

The trucks have been assembled, filled and “tested for hours on the campus of Stony Brook University”, with a full-scale real-world performance evaluation scheduled on the test track later this month.

So how does it compare to the Tesla Semi? Does ammonia seem to outperform batteries in this kind of heavy transportation? It’s very difficult to say. Amogy does not provide performance or range estimates at this stage.

We know there are inefficiencies to address here that aren’t true for battery electric vehicles. Amogy’s powertrain has an ammonia cracker that converts ammonia into hydrogen. That hydrogen is then passed through a fuel cell to generate electricity, which is then used to drive an electric motor.

So if Amogy’s “total net electrical energy stored” of 900 kWh simply means that there is enough ammonia on board to theoretically store 900 kWh, then 900 kWh will power the motor. does not mean reaching There are losses in the ammonia cracking reactor on board, further losses in the refining stage that makes the hydrogen ready for use in fuel cells, and further losses in the fuel cell stage.

I don’t know what technology Amogy uses and what the efficiency factor is at these stages. However, we can make a guess. The Ammonia Energy Association lists a best case ammonia cracking efficiency of 76%, but this is likely on an industrial scale and a cracking reactor that fits in a truck or tractor is unlikely to operate efficiently. . Still, using this figure, about 684 kWh of energy reaches the fuel cell in the form of hydrogen. Assuming an efficiency of 65% for the PEM fuel cell, 444.6 kWh of energy is delivered to the motor. That’s just under half the original 900 kWh, so in this optimistic scenario, Amozy his truck would travel about half the distance of a Tesla Semi.

It doesn’t sound good. But on the other hand, you can easily add more range by sticking another ammonia tank somewhere. This is a much less painful process than trying to extend the range of a lithium battery-powered semi. Designing a new truck around the Ammonia concept allows all sorts of things.

I’m curious how this machine performs. We have been bickering for some time about the widely predicted lithium resource scarcity that is expected to occur over the next decade. Nowhere is there enough lithium production to meet the expected demand as the transition to EVs accelerates. Not to mention other battery related metals.

Ammonia is an inefficient but dense energy storage medium. It uses less than half the energy of diesel, but more than lithium or hydrogen, and can be produced and used cleanly. It’s well understood in terms of storage, transportation and handling, and is already available in bulk if you don’t mind working with dirty fuel to begin with. It could absolutely be related.

Amogy is next looking at Marin. The company says later this year he will unveil a 1 MW scale ammonia-powered tug, and by 2025 it will scale this to more than 10 MW to power trains associated with transoceanic container ships. I would like to manufacture. There are other ammonia-powered transportation projects in the works. For example, Australian mining company Fortescue says she will have a 75-meter (246-foot) vessel in service sometime this year. However, this is expected to use an ammonia-burning powertrain rather than an electrical system run via a fuel cell.

Check out the not-so-informative video of the Amogy track below.

Source: Amozy