Hydrogen fuel-cell project takes crack at advancing ammonia use

The project, titled ‘Apolo’, is a collaboration between several partners and aims to solve the challenges of power conversion from ammonia and develop an efficient and flexible ammonia cracking technology for the maritime sector.

The four-year programme, which kicked off 1 January 2024, will demonstrate powering fuel-cell systems using hydrogen from ammonia cracking with a power output of 125 kW. Additionally, the programme will test an ammonia cracker coupled with a novel ammonia engine running on an ammonia/hydrogen blend to compare the different technologies.

Corvus Energy’s partners in the project are H2Site, Tecnalia, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, 1 CUBE, Chalmers Tekniska Hogskola, Nuvera, Astander, Fertiberia and LEC. Tecnalia will be the co-ordinator of the project.

Through the programme, it seeks to develop, integrate, test and demonstrate the ammonia cracker and Corvus Pelican PEM fuel cell. Corvus Energy will also lead a work package developing a business case for these systems used on board ships.

“In decarbonising the maritime sector, ammonia will be an essential part of the energy mix for ships sailing the longest routes,” said Corvus Energy vice president, development projects Svenn Kjetil Haveland, adding, “There are no commercially viable ammonia solutions available for shipowners as of today. Developing advanced methods for cracking ammonia and demonstrating scalability and overall system efficiency is an important step forward.”

The Apolo project, funded partly through the Horizon Europe Framework Programme, will advance the development of technologies capable of “targeting the first 30,000 ships in the market”, according to Corvus Energy. The project will initially focus on vessels with 1 to 10-MW propulsion, with a significant number of them being around 3 MW in the next decade, as these are the first vessels relevant for ammonia-powered solutions.

As we previously reported, Corvus Energy secured its first order for its Pelican fuel-cell system in October.