Environmental Impact Analysis on a green ammonia process design in Trinidad & Tobago

Ammonia (NH3) has been investigated as a possible energy source in recent years, with an emphasis on the benefits and difficulties of a fully worldwide deployment from a techno-economic standpoint. The adoption of ammonia as fuel is seen as a technique to help decarbonization; nevertheless, an evaluation of the environmental profile is required to validate the long- term viability of the switch to ammonia as fuel to produce green hydrogen. This paper compares a research report on ammonia synthesis that was based on actual fieldwork using the program Simapro to evaluate the environmental life cycle effects of a green ammonia process. For each of the two ammonia manufacturing processes, a cradle-to-gate evaluation was created. The original ammonia synthesis process has a better global warming potential (GW100a) of 760 kg CO2 eq, abiotic depletion (fossil fuels) of 1.24 x 104 MJ, and ozone layer depletion (ODP) of 6.62 x 10-5 kg CFC-11 eq despite the green ammonia process producing an annual profit of 15,415,891.20
$USD. The traditional ammonia process, which has a lower effect percentage on various categories, is generally preferable over the green ammonia process, according to an LCA completed for this research.

近年来，氨（NH3）作为潜在能源受到广泛研究，研究重点从技术经济视角出发，聚焦全球全规模部署的效益与挑战。将氨用作燃料被视为助力脱碳的可行路径，但为验证以氨为燃料生产绿氢的转型长期可行性，仍需对其环境表现开展系统性评估。本文依托Simapro软件开展实地调研，对比分析了围绕绿氨生产工艺环境生命周期影响展开的相关研究报告，并针对两种氨合成工艺分别建立了从摇篮到大门（cradle-to-gate）的生命周期评价体系。尽管绿氨工艺可实现年利润15415891.20美元，但传统氨合成工艺的全球变暖潜势（GW100a）达760 kg CO₂当量、化石能源非生物耗竭量为1.24×10⁴ MJ、臭氧层耗竭潜势（ODP）为6.62×10⁻⁵ kg CFC-11当量。本研究开展的生命周期评价（LCA, Life Cycle Assessment）结果显示，相较于绿氨工艺，传统氨合成工艺在多项环境影响类别中的占比更低，整体更具优势。