According to the U.S. Department of Energy, ammonia production is one of the country's largest industries. Ammonia is the fifth most abundantly produced chemical in the United States, normally for use in fertilizers. Now an Ohio University professor has come up with a way to turn that abundant chemical into something we need more of - a clean energy source.

"Well what I can say is that we've demonstrated that several years of research that ammonia is a complete, green renewable fuel," says Dr. Gerri Botte.

The process she has developed, electrolysis of ammonia, allows a person to put ammonia into an ammonia electrolytic cell, apply a small current, and it breaks into a clean stream of hydrogen and nitrogen. The hydrogen can then be used for other purposes. Ben Schafer had developed a hydrogen fuel cell, but was looking for a low-cost way to produce hydrogen for it.

Dr Gerri Botte described how the idea got started. "I was in a meeting in Denver and in a luncheon I met the president of American Hydrogen Corporation, and he said that his business was to put hydrogen tanks in houses. And I asked him where he was going to get the hydrogen from, because I don't want a hydrogen tank in my house. And he said do you have an answer. And I said, "What about ammonia?" I kept telling him about how the ammonia electrolyzer works and he kept smiling and smiling and I couldn't tell what he was thinking, I just got this person smiling. And he said you're right, we think that ammonia is the way, but we didn't know of a technology that was present to do it at a low temperature."

Soon, a new company was developed - American Hydrogen Corporation. They have already broken ground on a production facility in Meigs County to build the fuel cells based on Dr Botte's concepts. The first product will be a 5 kW stationary engine.

"Here's the dream," says Ben Schafer. "Here's a farmer. He buys ammonia and puts it on his fields. He has the ammonia byproduct. Instead of putting it back on his fields again, he sends it through a filter that sends it to an electrolyzer, it produces nitrogen that goes into the air, and then converts the hydrogen to electricity and water. That electricity becomes a crop that he puts back onto the grid and sells back to the electric company."