**4. Outlook and future of the technology**

The proposed technology in this chapter offered the potential to co-produce ammonia and hydrogen via a built-in heat recovery system and photovoltaic solar energy.

The thermodynamic models developed in this chapter assessed the energetic performance of the process and identified the thermodynamic limitations associated with the use of a thermal plasma reactor. The optimum operating temperature, and feed conditions together with the phase stability diagram for the aluminium particles in the thermal plasma reactor were obtained via equilibrium chemical analysis based on the Gibbs minimisation method. The results of this study showed that:


*Green and Sustainable Chemical Looping Plasma Process for Ammonia and Hydrogen Production DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.104095*

**Figure 10.**

*(a) Scattering and distribution of the process plant dynamic energy demand data calculated with Aspen plus, (b) the calculated renewable energy fraction of the system based on the diurnal solar radiance profile obtained in Geelong, Victoria 3220.*

proposed process is resilient when using renewable energy for either small-scale or large-scale production of ammonia and hydrogen. For example, at 1 tonne/day production, an instant solar share (share of renewable energy without any storage units) ranged from 21% to 33.6%. It means that by considering SSF = 10%, about 43% of the demand can be maintained by the renewable energy resource and heat recovery from the products.

3.The proposed process can have various industrial applications. For example, in a centralised mode, it can be integrated with an air separation unit (ASU). The ASU generates oxygen from the air and the side product of the plant is nitrogen (or vitiated air which has reduced oxygen). While oxygen is produced from both ASU and 3CLAP, the nitrogen from ASU can be fed in the proposed process to be converted to ammonia for fertiliser production. Also, the proposed process can be integrated with gas-cooled power plants (e.g., nuclear) not only to utilise the nitrogen from the cooling loop, but also to generate electricity for the thermal plasma and also to be injected into the grid. The other application of the proposed system is to be utilised in areas where solar reception is high. While a thermal plasma reactor can be built in any area with good solar reception, the rest of the plant can be developed next to water resources (for steam generation) and near nitrogen down streams. Hence, the proposed process can be designed in a decentralised (localised) mode.

While the feasibility of the process was successfully demonstrated in this chapter, further studies are still required to promote the technology readiness level of the 3CLAP. The required studies are listed as follows:
