Ammonia cars

Ammonia cars Fletcher Created Aug 31, 2025 03:50 by Fletcher - 4 Comments

forget about the design in my first post. There is no way i could fit a methane steam reformer in a car, not to mention the water that would have to be carried around, & use some fuel to heat the reaction chamber. Not to mention all the co2 that would have to be sequestered lest you vent to the air.

My best friend's dad reminded me of ammonia when i brought up the subject, a nitrogen with 3 hydrogen. Crack off the hydrogen using a catalyst & feed it into the fuel cell. The diatomic nitrogen will not interfere. Since there is no oxygen in the cracking chamber there is no chance for any nitrous oxide(N2O) to from, unlike in toyota's new ammonia cars which burn it in a combustion chamber(subject to carnot limit). Electric motors are the way to go, just need more dense electric energy storage.

As for storage, ammonia has the perk of being liquid under its own vapor pressure, we truck it around all the time, as long as the water content is low enough it will not corrode a steel tank. you would want to make sure this tank is quite strong, ammonia gas does not burn, but it is quite toxic when inhaled, death comes quickly if stuck inside a cloud of the stuff.

Finally, ammonia production. most of our ammonia uses the haber-bosch process coupled with methane steam reforming as a hydrogen source.
I see two ways to make this green, 1. stop being greedy, get 4 hydrogen instead of the 6 you would get if the water shift reaction is used. Make products, use the carbon monoxide to form other compounds.
2. use electrolysis split water into hydrogen & oxygen.