What is the APOLO Project?
This project, the name of which is an acronym for POwer conversion tecnhoLogies based on Onboard ammonia cracking through novel membrane reactors, is a holistic approach to tackling the challenges of converting energy from ammonia.
- Flexible and efficient ammonia cracking technology together with fuel cells or engines will be developed to fully decarbonise the maritime sector.
What is our role?
Fertiberia is participating in this important project with two prototypes to be installed at our ammonia plant in Puertollano. They will demonstrate the use of ammonia as a decarbonised fuel for maritime transport, where the prototypes are an ammonia to green hydrogen cracker and its subsequent use in fuel cells.
Objectives
Demonstrate scalability beyond 3 MW. The project will therefore focus on:
- A 125 kW energy conversion system, using an ammonia cracker coupled to a PEM fuel cell system, to achieve an overall system efficiency of 51% to 54%. The ammonia cracker will be customised to operate at different pressure conditions and efficiency levels to assess the flexibility of the cracking system for all types of PEM fuel cells.
- A 125 kW partial ammonia cracker coupled to a 4-stroke engine, which has an overall system efficiency of more than 45%. A Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) system will also be developed to eliminate NOx emissions from the exhaust of the new engine.
With the APOLO project, we hope to minimise the ecological footprint of transport and energy, focusing on the maritime sector.
- To do this, we are actively developing innovative energy conversion technologies (such as the cracker, fuel cell and engine) and using life cycle assessment (LCA) at various stages of product development.
- The technologies developed in the APOLO project will initially be applicable to 30,000 ships: initially, the focus will be on ships with 1-10 MW propulsion and a significant number of them will be around 3 MW in the next decade, as these are the first ships relevant to ammonia-powered solutions.
Project partners
We are part of a consortium composed of a total of 12 European companies from 7 countries, including technological companies such as Tecnalia, LEC GmbH, Chalmers and Eindhoven University of Technology; industries specialised in catalysts, membranes and high-tech developments such as Johnson Matthey, Hydrogen Onsite SL, Corvus Energy and others from the transport sector such as Hyster-Yale.
Relevant data
- Coordinator: Tecnalia.
- Registration date: 15/01/2024
- Project funded by the European Union.
