Unlocking ammonia as a fuel source for heavy industry

At a high level, ammonia seems like a dream fuel: It’s carbon-free, energy-dense, and easier to move and store than hydrogen. Ammonia is also already manufactured and transported at scale, meaning it could transform energy systems using existing infrastructure. But burning ammonia creates dangerous nitrous oxides, and splitting ammonia molecules to create hydrogen fuel typically requires lots of energy and specialized engines.

The startup Amogy, founded by four MIT alumni, believes it has the technology to finally unlock ammonia as a major fuel source. The company has developed a catalyst it says can split — or “crack” — ammonia into hydrogen and nitrogen up to 70 percent more efficiently than state-of-the-art systems today. The company is planning to sell its catalysts as well as modular systems including fuel cells and engines to convert ammonia directly to power. Those systems don’t burn or combust ammonia, and thus bypass the health concerns related to nitrous oxides.

Since Amogy’s founding in 2020, the company has used its ammonia-cracking technology to create the world’s first ammonia-powered drone, tractor, truck, and tugboat. It has also attracted partnerships with industry leaders including Samsung, Saudi Aramco, KBR, and Hyundai, raising more than $300 million along the way.

“No one has showcased that ammonia can be used to power things at the scale of ships and trucks like us,” says CEO Seonghoon Woo PhD ’15, who founded the company with Hyunho Kim PhD ’18, Jongwon Choi PhD ’17, and Young Suk Jo SM ’13, PhD ’16. “We’ve demonstrated this approach works and is scalable.”

Earlier this year, Amogy completed a research and manufacturing facility in Houston and announced a pilot deployment of its catalyst with the global engineering firm JGC Holdings Corporation. Now, with a manufacturing contract secured with Samsung Heavy Industries, Amogy is set to start delivering more of its systems to customers next year. The company will deploy a 1-megawatt ammonia-to-power pilot project with the South Korean city of Pohang in 2026, with plans to scale up to 40 megawatts at that site by 2028 or 2029. Woo says dozens of other projects with multinational corporations are in the works.

Because of the power density advantages of ammonia over renewables and batteries, the company is targeting power-hungry industries like maritime shipping, power generation, construction, and mining for its early systems.

“This is only the beginning,” Woo says. “We’ve worked hard to build the technology and the foundation of our company, but the real value will be generated as we scale. We’ve proved the potential for ammonia to decarbonize heavy industry, and now we really want to accelerate adoption of our technology. We’re thinking long term about the energy transition.”

Unlocking a new fuel source

Woo completed his PhD in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering before his eventual co-founders, Kim, Choi, and Jo, completed their PhDs in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. Jo worked on energy science and ran experiments to make engines run more efficiently as part of his PhD.

“The PhD programs at MIT teach you how to think deeply about solving technical problems using systems-based approaches,” Woo says. “You also realize the value in learning from failures, and that mindset of iteration is similar to what you need to do in startups.”

In 2020, Woo was working in the semiconductor industry when he reached out to his eventual co-founders asking if they were working on anything interesting. At that time, Jo was still working on energy systems based on hydrogen and ammonia while Kim was developing new catalysts to create ammonia fuel.

“I wanted to start a company and build a business to do good things for society,” Woo recalls. “People had been talking about hydrogen as a more sustainable fuel source, but it had never come to fruition. We thought there might be a way to improve ammonia catalyst technology and accelerate the hydrogen economy.”

The founders started experimenting with Jo’s technology for ammonia cracking, the process in which ammonia (NH₃) molecules split into their nitrogen (N₂) and hydrogen (H₂) constituent parts. Ammonia cracking to date has been done at huge plants in high-temperature reactors that require large amounts of energy. Those high temperatures limited the catalyst materials that could be used to drive the reaction.

Starting from scratch, the founders were able to identify new material recipes that could be used to miniaturize the catalyst and work at lower temperatures. The proprietary catalyst materials allow the company to create a system that can be deployed in new places at lower costs.

“We really had to redevelop the whole technology, including the catalyst and reformer, and even the integration with the larger system,” Woo says. “One of the most important things is we don’t combust ammonia — we don’t need pilot fuel, and we don’t generate any nitrogen gas or CO₂.”

Today Amogy has a portfolio of proprietary catalyst technologies that use base metals along with precious metals. The company has proven the efficiency of its catalysts in demonstrations beginning with the first ammonia-powered drone in 2021. The catalyst can be used to produce hydrogen more efficiently, and by integrating the catalyst with hydrogen fuel cells or engines, Amogy also offers modular ammonia-to-power systems that can scale to meet customer energy demands.

“We’re enabling the decarbonization of heavy industry,” Woo says. “We are targeting transportation, chemical production, manufacturing, and industries that are carbon-heavy and need to decarbonize soon, for example to achieve domestic goals. Our vision in the longer term is to enable ammonia as a fuel in a variety of applications, including power generation, first at microgrids and then eventually full grid-scale.”

Scaling with industry

When Amogy completed its facility in Houston, one of their early visitors was MIT Professor Evelyn Wang, who is also MIT’s vice president for energy and climate. Woo says other people involved in the Climate Project at MIT have been supportive.

Another key partner for Amogy is Samsung Heavy Industries, which announced a multiyear deal to manufacturing Amogy’s ammonia-to-power systems on Nov. 12.

“Our strategy is to partner with the existing big players in heavy industry to accelerate the commercialization of our technology,” Woo says. “We have worked with big oil and gas companies like BHP and Saudi Aramco, companies interested in hydrogen fuel like KBR and Mitsubishi, and many more industrial companies.”

When paired with other clean energy technologies to provide the power for its systems, Woo says Amogy offers a way to completely decarbonize sectors of the economy that can’t electrify on their own.

“In heavy transport, you have to use high-energy density liquid fuel because of the long distances and power requirements,” Woo says. “Batteries can’t meet those requirements. It’s why hydrogen is such an exciting molecule for heavy industry and shipping. But hydrogen needs to be kept super cold, whereas ammonia can be liquid at room temperature. Our job now is to provide that power at scale.”