Theoretically, ammonia electrolysis consumes 95% less energy than its major competitor water electrolysis and offers an economical, environmental, and efficient means for reducing nitrate contaminations in ground and drinking water. Thermodynamically at standard conditions, ammonia electrolysis consumes 1.55 Wh to produce one gram of hydrogen. This same gram of hydrogen generates 33 Wh utilizing a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). There is a potential of 31.45 Wh of net energy when coupling an ammonia electrolytic cell (AEC) and a PEMFC. Considering that PEMFCs are 60% efficient, the actual energy output ranges between 18 and 20 Wh. Prior to the research shown here, ammonia electrolysis in alkaline media was requiring more than 20 Wh of energy input due to slow anode kinetics and poor electrochemical cell design thus making any chances of a self-sustaining energy generator unfeasible. This research focused on improving and optimizing anode electrocatalyst materials, electrode configurations, and cell designs, as well as demonstrating stationary and mobile applications of ammonia electrolysis.
In addition to ammonia electrolysis, a novel electrochemical technique, urea electrolysis in alkaline media, was created and investigated. Similar to ammonia electrolysis, the anodic reaction, which is the oxidation of urea, was found to be the most rate-limiting half-cell reaction and required improvement. This research focused on fundamentally understanding the mechanism of urea electrolysis as well as investigating common electrocatalysts for small organic molecules. As a result, urea electrolysis in alkaline media proved to be a direct, economical, and environmental approach to producing hydrogen electrochemically with an inexpensive transition metal.