Ammonia is responsible for 50% of global food. But Ammonia production is the world's most polluting chemical industrial process, responsible for 500mt of CO2 annual emissions. Until now…
For 100 years Ammonia production has relied on the high temperature, high pressure Haber-Bosch process. We’re developing patent pending nanotechnology, drastically lowering temperature, pressure, and overall emissions: a low cost- a cleaner cooler greener ammonia.
Our small scale reactors give our partners local production facilities, drastically reducing cost, shortening supply chains and removing CO2 emissions.
We formed on Carbon 13 - The Venture builder for the climate emergency. We working to a goal of removing 10 million tonnes of CO2e a year by 2030.
Without ammonia based fertilisers around 50% of the world's population would not be here. Ammonia is also a good alternative energy store as it is easier to transport than hydrogen and burns without emitting CO2. With 9 times the energy density of lithium-ion batteries and 3 times that of Hydrogen Ammonia is also becoming a frontrunner in clean fuel.
LinkedinWe have developed a nanotechnology that is capable at synthesisng Ammonia at much lower temperatures and pressures than has ever been the case before.
We have two patents pending currently for the breakthrough that came while our CTO, Dr Yubiao Niu was working on new and Novel approaches to trying to decarbonise industry processes.
Due to the technology enabling us to make Ammonia at very low temperature and pressures, the process is able to switch on and off effortlessly enabling it to work well with renewable and intermittent energy sources. We are able to make ammonia using 16x less energy than the current process.
Our small reactor which we affectionally refer to as the Minion can be placed on site, alongside any Hydrogen producing facility and turn Hydrogen into Ammonia for simple storage and transport.
By using the greenest Hydrogen and having low energy requirements we are able to make the greenest Ammonia, which will help with food security where energy prices are highly fluctuating and there are also a number of initiatives to use Ammonia as a fuel of the future due to its energy density and emissions.
We are always open to partnership discussions so if you are interested in Green Ammonia, then please get in touch
Research Complex at Harwell (RCaH)
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Harwell
Didcot
OX11 0FA
UK
We are always looking for mission driven individuals who want to make a significant impact on the climate crisis.
The Research Complex, Harwell, Oxfordshire, England - June 6th, 2023 - Nanotechnology company, Nium, raises $3 million in seed funding to scale up its green ammonia technologies.
Nium is decarbonising chemistry, delivering energy and eliminating emissions starting with the most polluting chemical industrial process on this planet: ammonia production.
Leading global agri-food-tech venture capital investor, AgFunder, led the round. They are joined by one of the world’s foremost deeptech investors, DCVC. The Silicon Valley funds join existing pre-seed investors in the UK and Europe, including Carbon 13, in supporting Nium in its next phase of growth.
With this capital raise, Nium is assembling its first ’minions’ - small scale, modular, low energy consumption reactors to produce green ammonia. The minions contain Nium’s patent pending catalyst, delivering ammonia at a fraction of the price and pollution of traditional ammonia production methods.
Ammonia is critical to humanity but the challenge is in its production. Today, 96% of Ammonia relies on Haber-Bosch, the most polluting chemical industrial process on our planet. It’s this problem that Nium aims to solve. The low pressure and low temperature conditions of Nium’s system allows for onsite synthesis of ammonia, without emissions, powered by renewable energy.
"Ammonia production is already crucial for 50% of the world's food production, but current techniques emit megatons of CO2," says Tom Shields, Partner at AgFunder. "Nium's revolutionary technology produces emission-free green ammonia, both as a feedstock for our food and an enabler for the hydrogen economy.”
Nium is also on mission to use their novel nanotechnology to accelerate the hydrogen transition, shorten supply chains, and abate industrial emissions at global scale.
Nium’s ‘Green Ammonia on Demand’ system offers a cost effective storage and transport vector for hydrogen players while unlocking access to growing markets for green ammonia as a clean energy carrier, clean fertiliser feedstock and zero carbon fuel.
“Today the tomatoes from our supermarkets are typically grown with ammonia fertilisers, made by burning fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are burned again to ship the tomatoes to the supermarkets. And we burn fossil fuels yet again to cook them” Said Lewis Jenkins, CEO and cofounder of Nium
“Nium has the potential to eliminate emissions at every stage of this process. Removing Haber-Bosch from our lives would reduce the 500 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (MtCO₂) from ammonia production each year. Nium’s technology can also help unlock a potential 700 MtCO₂ from transport as zero carbon ammonia replaces the literal ‘bottom of the barrel’ for fossil bunker fuel in maritime shipping and other industrial applications.
There is also an immediate opportunity for ammonia as a hydrogen energy carrier. Green Ammonia on Demand delivers on hydrogen’s promise as a vector for renewable energy and a viable alternative to fossil fuels.”
Nium was founded last summer in Cambridge, England by an entrepreneur, a nanoscientist and a former race car engineer. The three met during Carbon13’s venture builder for the climate emergency, forming Nium around a common goal of eliminating emissions at scale.
The technology follows 3 years of research and development by Nium’s CTO, Dr Yubiao Niu with Swansea University at Diamond Light Source. He was then joined by COO, Phil Hunter at the UK Synchrotron Facility, The Research Complex at Harwell, Oxfordshire and the UK Catalysis Hub. Nium has been supported by The Greenhouse at Imperial College and the Grantham Institute, The BMW Foundation Respond Program, Octopus Ventures, with transaction support from Goodwin and Burges-Salmon, and a year of intense testing and iteration at laboratories around the UK as the three founders proved the technology at growing scale.
Nium uses nanotechnology to decarbonise chemistry, deliver energy and eliminate emissions. They’ve started with the most polluting chemical industrial process on this planet: ammonia production.
Agfunder invests in bold and impactful technologies rapidly transforming our food and agriculture system.
DCVC backs entrepreneurs solving trillion-dollar problems to multiply the benefits of capitalism for everyone while reducing its costs.