Customers who have historically wanted to use ammonia for power generation have been limited to co-firing with coal or diesel in order to overcome ammonia’s high ignition temperature and slow chemical kinetics. This process comes at a price; carbon emissions, added costs for blending, and significant drops in power output. Fortunately there is a new and cost effective alternative for ammonia-based power generation, one that’s uniquely positioned to run off of 100% ammonia without any reductions in power or efficiency. Precise reaction control, thanks to software-enabled technology, permits the Mainspring Linear Generator to manage fuel compression ratios and utilize a…

US-based Mainspring Energy has announced successful testing of pure ammonia fuel in its Linear Generator technology. Running on pure (anhydrous) ammonia, the overall system efficiency was 1% higher than conventional gas fuels, and Mainspring indicates that “off-the-shelf” technology available for current gas turbine models can yield NOx emissions that “meet any permitting standard”. Mainspring aims for its product to displace diesel-powered backup generators in a variety of applications.