Without it, half of the world’s population would be starving. Yet the use of ammonia-based fertilisers has also contributed to global declines in biodiversity and air quality problems.
Ammonia is also synthesized in large, centralized facilities, far away from the point-of-use, leading to additional CO2 emissions from distribution.
What’s more, the whole supply chain is at the mercy of global events and political disruptions, as evidenced by the drastic price increases during the COVID pandemic and war in Ukraine.
In an industry where green alternatives are needed and very few solutions have proven viable, NitroVolt is working towards a solution that will produce green ammonia directly at the point-of-use - at the farm - thereby disrupting this cumbersome and long supply chain while circumventing all CO2 emissions.
Producing ammonia from air, water and green electricity
This is done through the company’s ‘Nitrolyzer’ system, which will be a container-sized system that combines only air, water, and renewable electricity in an electrocatalytic ammonia synthesis process. NitroVolt says its solution totally removes fossil fuels from the production process, making its ammonia 100% renewable, carbon-free, and competitive with current ammonia prices.
With the latest seed round, NitroVolt plans to take its technology – which has so far only been successful in the lab – to the real world.
The next phase of the company will be to scale its technology and prove viability by building a demonstration unit on a farm. The funding will also be used to identify and forge partnerships with partners and suppliers to further support the scaling and building of these systems as the company continues to grow.
“My ambition in life is to make a measurable and lasting positive impact, which is exactly why we started NitroVolt,” says CEO Suzanne Zamany Andersen. With a Ph.D. in Physics Engineering, she founded in 2017 together with CTO Mattia Saccoccio, who has a Ph.D. in Mechanical and Energy Engineering.
“The climate crisis demands action today, and by providing small modular units, we can do a fast implementation of a green solution. What gets me excited to go to work every day is the knowledge that NitroVolt has the possibility of enabling both environmental impact by abating significant CO2 emissions and societal impact by proving nitrogen-fertilizer to the most exposed and at-risk regions, thereby alleviating global hunger.”
'A potential game changer for farmers and our food security'
Participants in the seed round included BackingMinds, a Swedish early-stage venture capital firm, EIFO, the sovereign wealth fund of Denmark, and climate tech and early-stage investors EQT Foundation, Satgana, and DivisionM. The Breakthrough Energy Fellowship has provided a grant in 2023 and is now following that with an equity investment in the current round.
“The invention of industrial ammonia production has been vital in sustaining the world’s growing population throughout the last century,” says Lasse Truels Köhler, investment manager at green investments at EIFO. “Unfortunately, current production methods take a huge toll on the climate and in EIFO we are excited to support Nitrovolt on their journey to bring ammonia production into the green era where it is needed the most – on farms all around the world.”
Jasenko Hadzic, principal at BackingMinds, adds “NitroVolt’s technology is a potential game changer for farmers and our food security.”
