Integrated Approach to Ship Electrification Using Fuel Cells and an Ammonia Decomposition System

Yuksel, O, Blanco-Davis, E, Hitchmough, D, Shagar, GV, Spiteri, A, Di Piazza, MC, Pucci, M, Tsoulakos, N, Armin, M and Wang, J (2025) Integrated Approach to Ship Electrification Using Fuel Cells and an Ammonia Decomposition System. Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, 13 (5).

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Abstract

This study investigates the environmental and economic performance of integrating a proton exchange membrane fuel cell, battery systems, and an organic Rankine cycle-based waste heat recovery system for ship electrification. The analysis examines an onboard ammonia decomposition system for hydrogen production and ammonia production pathways. Additionally, the study benchmarks the effectiveness of onboard ammonia decomposition against green hydrogen bunkering scenarios (H2-BS). The analysis is based on data collected over two years from a bulk carrier provided by Laskaridis Shipping Co., Ltd. The environmental analysis includes well-to-wake emissions calculations. At the same time, economic performance is assessed through levelised cost of energy (LCOE) computations for 2025 and 2040, factoring in different fuel and carbon price scenarios. Consequently, the analysis utilises the Complex Proportional Assessment method to compare configurations featuring various ammonia production pathways across economic cases. The results indicate that green and pink ammonia feedstocks achieve maximum equivalent carbon dioxide reductions in the electrification plant of up to 47.28% and 48.47%, respectively, compared to H2-BS and 95.56% and 95.66% compared to the base scenario. Ammonia decomposition systems prove more economically viable than H2-BS due to lower storage and fuel costs, leading to competitive LCOE values that improve under higher carbon pricing scenarios.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	0405 Oceanography; 0704 Fisheries Sciences; 0911 Maritime Engineering; 3005 Fisheries sciences; 3709 Physical geography and environmental geoscience; 4015 Maritime engineering
Subjects:	T Technology > TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) V Naval Science > VM Naval architecture. Shipbuilding. Marine engineering
Divisions:	Engineering
Publisher:	MDPI
Date of acceptance:	14 May 2025
Date of first compliant Open Access:	27 May 2025
Date Deposited:	27 May 2025 09:46
Last Modified:	27 May 2025 10:00
DOI or ID number:	10.3390/jmse13050977
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/26416

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