UK start-up Catalsys is proposing its green ammonia-based power generation technology for airport ground operations and potentially for aircraft propulsion. This week, the sustainable aviation investment fund SkiesFifty announced it will establish a joint venture with Catalsys to fund early-use cases for the process, which involves converting sustainably produced “green” ammonia into an ammonia and hydrogen fuel mix to run generators that supply off-grid electricity.

Increasingly, airports, FBOs, and handling providers are seeking to run ground vehicles and other equipment with electricity as part of efforts to decarbonize their operations. In some countries, including the UK, it can take years to expand the capacity of an electric grid to support this approach, delaying decarbonization efforts and prompting the industry to consider hydrogen as an alternative.

According to Catalsys chairman and co-founder David Hughes, using hydrogen in on-site generators will be too expensive and difficult for airports and other industrial applications because of the high cost of hydrogen production and distribution. In the UK market, he expects the cost of electricity from green ammonia to be around £0.35 per kilowatt hour, compared with £1+ ($1,26) for hydrogen, £0.30 for conventional grey diesel fuel, and £0.45 for biodiesel.

With hydrogen having a far greater volume than ammonia, many more truckloads would have to be delivered to sites to generate an equivalent power output. According to Catalsys, it makes more sense to deliver ammonia to sites and convert some of it to hydrogen at the point of use to run the generators.

Earlier this week, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), along with the Airports Council International and the International Coordinating Council of Aerospace Industry Associations, published a white paper called “Concept of Operations of Battery and Hydrogen-Powered Aircraft at Aerodromes.” The report focuses on multiple preparations that will need to be made to incorporate the new power sources into aviation operations.

On-Airport Fuel Production

Each installation would include a portable cracker to convert some of the ammonia into hydrogen and a generator to run on the blended fuel. A unit that could generate 1 megawatt of power would be around the size of a shipping container, and Catalsys will offer airports and other aviation users the option of having multiple smaller units to be dispersed around a site or a larger fixed unit.

By around the middle of this year, Catalsys expects to have a trial installation up and running at a UK site run by construction group Skanska. This will serve as a technology demonstrator while SkiesFifty helps its partner to connect with potential airport clients. SkiesFifty intends to invest £1.5 million ($1.9 million) in support of this development. According to Hughes, Catalsys is currently taking pre-orders for the generators and is actively exploring partnerships for early adoption.

In the longer term, Catalsys plans to conduct research and development work to ascertain how its technology could be adapted for direct combustion with aircraft engines. In simple terms, green ammonia is supplied to the aircraft, and much the same process would be used to produce a fuel mix with hydrogen.

Currently, Saudi Arabia is building the world’s largest green ammonia production facility, with solar power being used to generate electricity that is used to produce hydrogen and, from that, ammonia. Markets like the UK would need to import all their supplies, and according to Catalsys, ammonia could be sourced from other locations where renewable power is relatively less expensive to produce.

Singapore-based SkiesFifty recently announced a partnership with Frontline BioEnergy to produce sustainable aviation fuel. It also has a joint project with GigaBlue to increase ocean-based carbon capture.

Catalsys was founded by Hughes with Kevin Fothergill, who is the company’s CEO. Both men are chemical industry veterans with extensive experience in industrial hydrogen applications.

Hydrogen-Powered Airliners on the Horizon

Companies such as ZeroAvia are working on plans to convert airliners to operate with hydrogen fuel cell-based propulsion systems. ZeroAvia has been working with several airports to develop the required supporting infrastructure. However, last week, Airbus confirmed that it is pushing back its planned timeline for introducing hydrogen-powered airliners from 2035, citing anticipated difficulties with fuel supplies as being among the factors causing the delay.

Just over three years ago, in November 2021, another UK start-up called Reaction Engines announced plans to develop an aircraft propulsion system using catalytic cracker reactors to generate hydrogen from ammonia to produce a blended fuel to burn in turbine engines. However, the company went into administration in October 2024 after failing to raise sufficient funding. Its process was based on heat exchanger technology developed for a Synthetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine intended for space launch vehicles combined with ammonia catalyst systems from the Science and Technologies Facilities Council.

A February 2023 report from the UK’s Royal Society included ammonia among four alternatives to current jet fuel. The other options cited in a call for the aviation industry to take a multi-pronged approach to achieving net zero carbon were hydrogen, synthetic efuels, and biofuels.