There is growing interest in alternative fuel sources for tractors that can help avoid serious diesel pollution, and ammonia may be a major candidate given its widespread use as an agricultural fertilizer. Brooklyn based startup amogy has made important new breakthroughs in this field. It is reported that the company has installed its zero emission energy system on John Deere's tractor.
As a fuel source, ammonia has begun to show promise in some transportation modes, including shipping and aviation. Important issues such as the most effective way to extract energy from ammonia and how to clean up the energy intensive process in its production still exist, but amogy believes that its technology is ready to tap its huge potential.
Its energy system includes a tank for storing liquid ammonia. When the ammonia is sent to the "high efficiency" cracking module, it will be divided into nitrogen and hydrogen. The resulting hydrogen is the power of the fuel cell of the system. Amogy said that it can provide continuous power for several hours at a time. The company said that the system level energy density provided by its solution is five times that of lithium-ion battery, exceeding 700wh/kg.
The energy system is integrated into a John Deere tractor of other standards, which can perform conventional agricultural tasks, but will not produce emissions from the usual tractors. Amogy said that the tractor was taken for several hikes, and some of them were refuelled, but it pointed out that this was as fast and simple as natural gas refuelling of traditional vehicles.
Seonghoon woo, CEO of amogy, said, "we are pleased to demonstrate our zero emission ammonia power solution on tractors for the first time in history. Ammonia is a feasible zero emission fuel for all heavy vehicles, but especially in agriculture and aquaculture, this ready-made chemical has been used as fertilizer for decades."
The company points out that technological improvements over the past year have increased the power capacity of its ammonia based energy system by 20 times. It believes that this tractor demonstration is an important first step in its efforts to decarbonize other heavy-duty transportation. In addition, it plans to carry out further demonstration in the next year.
Woo said: "as we continue to strive to lead the innovation of amino fuel solutions, the amogy team believes that this demonstration and future demonstrations - including the class 8 trucks and shipping ships to be demonstrated in the next 12 months - will accelerate the adoption of ammonia as the next generation fuel in the transportation industry sector and investment partners, and replace polluting diesel engines with emission free solutions."