Extracting Hydrogen from Ammonia... Increasing Efficiency by 2.5 Times

Performance Improved Even with 40% Ruthenium Usage Compared to Existing Catalysts

[Asia Economy Reporter Junho Hwang] A technology that can increase the efficiency of catalysts extracting hydrogen from ammonia by 2.5 times has been developed. This technology, which can obtain more hydrogen at a lower cost, is expected to contribute to the advent of the hydrogen economy, including hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

The research team led by Dr. Hyuntae Son and Dr. Changwon Yoon of the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Research Group at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology announced on the 22nd that they have developed a high-efficiency nano-metal catalyst that decomposes ammonia storing hydrogen to extract hydrogen.

The team used zeolite, which has countless pores with diameters of 2 nanometers (nm: one billionth of a meter) or less, as a support, and evenly dispersed and bonded ruthenium metal particles at the nanometer scale inside those pores, creating a catalyst with 2.5 times higher ammonia decomposition performance than existing commercial catalysts.

With this catalyst’s efficiency improved by 2.5 times, it can achieve the same efficiency using only 40% of the ruthenium compared to conventional catalysts. Additionally, the ruthenium nanoparticles stably exist inside the zeolite pores, solving the durability issues of the catalyst.

Dr. Hyuntae Son said, "The developed catalyst has ruthenium metal particles about 1 nm in size evenly dispersed in crystalline mineral zeolite, resulting in higher catalytic performance and durability than existing catalysts, which can accelerate the commercialization of processes producing high-purity hydrogen from ammonia." He added, "We are conducting research to scale up the process to a 20 cubic meter scale for industrialization."

Meanwhile, the results of this research were published in the latest issue of the international academic journal in the energy and environment field, Applied Catalysis B-Environmental.

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