Mitsui Chemicals Achieves 85% Ammonia Co-firing in Naphtha Cracker Test

Mitsui Chemicals, NEDO, Maruzen Petrochemical, Toyo Engineering and Sojitz Machinery reached an 85% ammonia co-firing rate on a heat-input basis across an entire naphtha cracking furnace in a test furnace with newly developed ammonia-fired burners. Hearth burners ran on 100% ammonia while NOx emissions stayed comparable to existing commercial furnaces. The partners plan to extend ammonia to wall burners and pursue 100% ammonia firing across the full furnace.

Key facts

Market context

Naphtha cracking furnaces are the core of steam cracking, the process that converts naphtha into ethylene and propylene, the basic building blocks for polyethylene, polypropylene, styrenics and many other polymers. Those downstream products feed packaging, automotive parts, construction materials, synthetic fibers and synthetic rubber, so cracker output tracks broad industrial and consumer demand. Because the furnaces burn large volumes of fuel, their combustion emissions are a significant share of the sector's carbon footprint, which is why operators are testing lower-carbon fuels. Ammonia is attractive because it contains no carbon, and it is already traded globally as a fertilizer and industrial chemical. Successful co-firing would tie cracker fuel economics partly to ammonia prices and supply, and could influence future demand for ammonia as a fuel. Commercial adoption would still depend on burner retrofits, emissions performance and the cost of ammonia relative to natural gas and other fuels.

Source: official release on jp.mitsuichemicals.com. Summary and context written by Market Krystal.