Metacon’s subsidiary Helbio has delivered a first ammonia cracker prototype to the Norwegian company Pherousa Green Technologies.
Ammonia-to-hydrogen conversion rates greater than 99.3% were achieved irrespective of load and the hydrogen purification unit was able to remove 100% of ammonia, satisfying ISO 14687:2019 and enabling a feed suitable for a PEM fuel cell.
Helbio has previous experience developing hydrogen solutions, having produced a Hydrogen Generator with a hydrogen production capacity of /h in June 2021.
Ammonia contains over four times as much hydrogen per volume unit as highly compressed hydrogen gas. However, it hasn’t been easy to find a suitable technical solution for splitting the ammonia molecule effectively to yield usable hydrogen.
Pherousa therefore initiated collaboration with Helbio for constructing and manufacturing an effective cracker proof-of-concept system. It is this first prototype under the partnership that has now been delivered. The companies believe this breakthrough could allow the shipping industry to use ammonia as a hydrogen storage medium, providing the industry with a long sought after zero emission propulsion solution.
Pherousa has received exclusive licensed rights to market the ammonia-to-hydrogen cracker in the maritime sector world-wide, as well as rights to the required Helbio intellectual property for the ammonia cracking technology. Metacon holds rights to serve as the supplier of the core reactor (cracking) modules to Pherousa. Metacon also retains exclusive rights to this technology for the production of hydrogen from ammonia in all other applications outside the maritime market including on-land hydrogen storage.
The Motorship has previously covered Helbio’s development work in marinising gas reformation technology for the production of hydrogen from LNG.
