Systems Engineering Research, Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford: Decarbonisation of Industrial Chemicals and Fuels
Systems Engineering Research
Decarbonisation of industrial chemicals and fuels
Professor René Bañares-Alcántara
Global emissions are commonly attributed to four sectors: electricity, transport, heating, and industry. We focus on decarbonising industrial chemicals and, in some cases, exploring their use as ‘green’ fuels in transport, electricity, and heat. We model emission free production both in the UK and in other parts of the world.
'Green' Ammonia Production
‘Green’ ammonia (NH3) is one of the world’s most promising ‘green’ fuels -- it is energy dense, synthesised from air, water, and electricity, and is approaching cost competitive production compared to presently produced ammonia, i.e. ‘brown’ ammonia. The group develops techno-economic models for ‘green’ ammonia production, incorporating real renewable energy profiles and optimising the process unit sizes as part of the Oxford Green Ammonia Technology group.
The group also collaborates at the world’s first roundtrip ‘green’ ammonia pilot plant (power-to-ammonia-to-power) owned by Siemens at the Rutherford Appleton Labs in Oxfordshire, UK, and the Department of Chemistry at Oxford (the Tsang Group).
Selected Publications
Journal Papers
Richard Nayak-Luke, René Bañares-Alcántara, and Ian Wilkinson (2018). “Green” Ammonia: Impact of Renewable Energy Intermittency on Plant Sizing and Levelized Cost of Ammonia. Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, 57 (43), 14607-14616. DOI: 10.1021/acs.iecr.8b02447
L.Ye, R.M.Nayak-Luke, R.Bañares-Alcántara, E.Tsang (2017). "Reaction: 'Green' Ammonia Production" Chem 3(5): 712-714
Technical Reports
René Bañares-Alcántara et al. (2016). Analysis of Islanded Ammonia-based Energy Storage Systems
Conference Papers
R.M.Nayak-Luke, R.Bañares-Alcántara (2018) "Long-Term Energy Storage: What is the Need and is Ammonia a Solution?" Process Systems Engineering (PSE 2018), San Diego, USA, 1-5th July
R.M.Nayak-Luke, R.Bañares-Alcántara (2018) "Quantifying the Impact of Renewable Energy Intermittency on the Need for Energy Storage Using the Storage Duration Index (SDI)" Grand Renewable Energy 2018 Conference, Yokohama, Japan, 17-22nd June
R.Nayak-Luke, R.Bañares-Alcántara (2018) "Quantifying the need for energy storage using the Storage Duration Index (SDI)" UK Energy Storage Conference (UKES2018), 20-22nd March
R.Nayak-Luke, R.Bañares-Alcántara (2016) "Quantifying the relationship between renewable energy sources and electrical energy storage requirements" OSES2016, University of Malta 13-15th July