Fujitsu has announced its progress on a collaboration with Icelandic start-up, Atmonia, for a cleaner method of producing ammonia which would make ammonia a suitable power source for data centres.
As part of the agreement on the joint project, which first began in April, Fujitsu would supply the high-performance compute (HPC) resources to discover new materials and catalyst candidates for ammonia synthesis.
Ammonia does not emit carbon dioxide when burned, and is easier to transport and store than hydrogen-based fuels. However, existing methods of ammonia production use the Haber-Bosch process, a series of reactions which generates significant amounts of carbon dioxide as a by-product. Hence, Fujitsu aims to develop a catalyst for the ammonia production process to create a cleaner method of production.
Fujitsu has said that it aims to build machinery for ammonia production that is shippable and easily transported around the world, to enhance adoption of its technology.
Transportable, Storable, and Cost-Effective Clean Energy
While the project is still in the preliminary stages of innovation, Fujitsu has begun working with datasets from Atmonia, and building proof-of-concept models of potential catalysts using Fujitsu’s Arm-based Fugaku supercomputer.
Senior Director at Fujitsu Research Surya Josyula told The Register that Fujitsu has been looking into green ammonia as a potential alternative fuel source for its own data centres. “Fujitsu, as you can imagine, operates data centres all over the world to power our own internal businesses, and we also run data centres on behalf of our customers.”
“So what we are currently researching is, once we have green ammonia produced, how can we power our data centres and use that as a backup power source or even a primary power source?”
The project is still in the early stages of development. Josyula noted that Fujitsu is still “not announcing public plans right now,” but nonetheless affirmed that “catalysts are the key, and companies like Atmonia have the vision,” he said. “I mean, they want to produce it in a container, everything is in one shipping container. That’s sort of the moon-shot idea, but the catalysts are key and we’re seeking to create new catalysts using technologies like supercomputing, material sciences, and AI.”
Currently, Fujitsu aims to launch green ammonia as a backup energy source for power grids running on renewable energy, since wind or solar power may fluctuate at intervals throughout the day. Furthermore, Fujitsu notes that many other companies are also switching to renewable energy, and would benefit from low carbon emission backup energy sources.
This joint research venture between Fujitsu and Atmonia is set to last from April 13 2022 to March 31 2023, and displays Fujitsu’s commitment to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals for the development of affordable and green energy.
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