Techno-economic assessment of different small-scale electrochemical NH production plants

Electrochemical ammonia synthesis via the nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR) has been poised as one of the promising technologies for the sustainable production of green ammonia. In this work, we developed extensive process models of fully integrated electrochemical NH 3 production plants at small scale (91 tonnes per day), including their techno-economic assessments, for (Li-)mediated, direct and indirect NRR pathways at ambient and elevated temperatures, which were compared with electrified and steam-methane reforming (SMR) Haber-Bosch processes. The levelized cost of ammonia (LCOA) of aqueous NRR at ambient conditions only becomes comparable with SMR Haber-Bosch at very optimistic electrolyzer performance parameters (FE > 80% at j ≥ 0.3 A cm −2 ) and electricity prices (