While hydrogen is emerging as a clean alternative automotive fuel and energy
storage medium, there are still numerous challenges to implementation, such as
the economy of hydrogen production and deployment, expensive storage materials,
energy intensive compression or liquefaction processes, and limited trial
applications. Synthetic ammonia production, on the other hand, has been
available on an industrial scale for nearly a century. Ammonia is one of the
most-traded commodities globally and the second most-produced synthetic chemical
after sulfuric acid. As an energy carrier, it enables effective hydrogen storage
in chemical form by binding hydrogen atoms to atmospheric nitrogen.
While ammonia as a fuel is still in its infancy, its unique properties render it
as a potentially viable candidate for decarbonizing the automotive industry.
Yet, lack of regulation and standards for automotive applications, technology
readiness, and reliance on natural gas for both hydrogen feedstocks to generate
the ammonia and facilitate hydrogen and nitrogen conversion into liquid ammonia
add extra uncertainty to use scenarios.
Unsettled Issues Concerning the Use of Green Ammonia Fuel in Ground
Vehicles brings together collected knowledge on current and future
prospects for the application of ammonia in ground vehicles, including the
technological and regulatory challenges for this new type of clean fuel.