The New Carbon-neutral Fuel Engineering Laboratory! （Yamaguchi University）

Carbon-neutral Fuel Engineering Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Yamaguchi University 2 cho-me 16-1 , Tokiwadai, Ube, 755-8611, Japan Ryoya Shiraishi, Associate professor E-mail: shiraishi[at].yamaguchi-u.ac.jp

Keywords：

Carbon-neutral fuel, Renewable Energies, Hydrogen, Ammonia, Plasma

Abstract：

Global warming and accompanying climate change are urgent issues, and the reduction of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO₂) is necessary. Greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced to 40-70% of 2010 levels by 2050, and zero by 2100. Hydrogen and ammonia do not emit CO₂ when burned, so they are attracting attention as alternatives to fossil fuels. Our main research theme is "carbon-neutral fuel production", to explore production of hydrogen and ammonia.

To popularize these fuels as energy infrastructure, cost reduction is necessary, and for that, improving energy efficiency of production and equipment cost reduction is needed. As a candidate of low-cost production method, we studied production of hydrogen and ammonia with plasma. For hydrogen production, theoretically, oil decomposition with plasma could be 5-10 times more efficient than electrolysis of water, without CO₂ emissions. For ammonia production, ammonia can be produced with simple and small equipment compared to current industrial production methods, but there are issues with efficiency. Based on these backgrounds, we conduct research aimed at improving the efficiency of hydrogen and ammonia production using plasma.