Topical workshops were organized to favor the discussion among Action participants of the different Working Groups.

Differently from annual general meeting these workshops were very focused on specific issues of the Action.

Ammonia is a promising energy carrier from several points of view. It is carbon-free and can be burned directly in engines and furnaces. Alternatively, it can be thermally cracked to produce hydrogen. Ammonia (NH₃) has a high H₂ density, a significant energy density and can be produced on an industrial scale in a highly efficient process. Furthermore, it has an existing extensive distribution network and is easily stored by liquefaction at moderate pressure. There are significant challenges associated with the efficient NH₃ utilization in combustion, though. These are mainly related to its relatively low calorific value, its poor ignition and flame stability and the possible increase of NOx emissions when inefficient combustion technologies are be used.

Following the strong interest growing within the SMARTCATS COST Action on the potentials of ammonia in combustion based energy production systems a workshop focused on ammonia combustion has been organized in Lisbon on 13 and 14 of April (before the next European Combustion Meeting).

The workshop has been focused on all the aspects of the use of ammonia as energy carrier. Invited lectures on synthesis, combustion fundamentals and  energy demonstration stimulated a very successful and fruitful discussion of the following round tables.

Workshop page with Presentations, Proceedings and Photos

In the distributed energy production scenario the role of Smart Energy Carriers (SECs) becomes of outmost relevance in terms of local availability and of their potential use in the available technology.  The need of SECs conversion system integration in the energy grid to moderate the effect of intermittency of renewable energy increases the relevance of a thorough and widely shared knowledge on the many possible interactions among production and distribution layers of the grid.

The workshop aimed at triggering a wide-ranging discussion among people from industry and research field on SECs feasibility on a large scale. The main topics were related to barriers to H₂ (plus NH₃) economy, waste and solid fuel valorisation, decentralizing energy production systems, techno-economical analysis for SECs sustainability and challenges in data mining associated to decentralized production.

Workshop page with Presentations and Proceedings

The first WG4 workshop was focused on the topics of Workgroup 4 of the Action: chemical data mining and their organization in easily accessible repositories represent  key points in realizing reliable and effective chemical data libraries to be used to simulate new fuels reactive behaviour.
This topic is transversal to the other Action Workgroups since experimental and modeling activities may find a natural common point in the development of data infrastructures and the definition of shared architectures and open access protocols. These structures may represent a formidable tool in the dissemination of well assessed knowledge and effective modeling tools.

Program

• Proceedings of the invited and contributed presentations
• Databases and Systems Use Cases:Presentation and Demo Session
• Videos of the invited presentations are made available on the Action Youtube channel.