Tsubame BHB targets cleaner, local ammonia production
Photo by Loren King on Unsplash
Ammonia-based fertilisers help feed roughly half the world’s population, but producing their essential ingredient consumes vast quantities of energy and relies heavily on fossil fuels. Japanese startup Tsubame BHB uses electride catalyst technology to make ammonia at lower temperatures and pressures, aiming to reduce synthesis energy requirements and bring production closer to customers.
Its approach addresses two connected problems: the environmental footprint of ammonia manufacturing and the transport costs and supply risks facing users far from large production sites. A catalyst that makes smaller plants practical could change both the equipment required and the geography of supply.
In a release dated 28 October 2026, Tsubame announced that its first commercial-scale demonstration plant, installed at INPEX’s Kashiwazaki Hydrogen Park, had moved from trial operation into ammonia production and supply to Mitsubishi Gas Chemical. The delivery gives the company an industrial reference for its distributed production model.
How Haber-Bosch works and why ammonia production needs to change
Ammonia, NH₃, combines nitrogen and hydrogen. It is the starting material for mineral nitrogen fertilisers, which give crops a nutrient essential for growth. Around 70% of ammonia is used to make fertilisers, according to the International Energy Agency’s 2021 roadmap; the remainder serves industrial applications.
For more than a century, manufacturers have relied on Haber-Bosch, the process named after Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch. It reacts nitrogen and hydrogen over a catalyst, usually based on iron, to produce ammonia.
The difficulty lies in nitrogen’s stability. Each nitrogen molecule contains two atoms held together by a strong triple bond, which must be broken for ammonia to form. Conventional catalysts need high temperatures to achieve a useful reaction rate, while high pressure favours ammonia formation. After the reaction, ammonia is separated and unreacted gases are recirculated.
Tsubame’s comparison puts conventional operating conditions at 400–500°C and 10–30 megapascals, approximately 100–300 bar. These requirements, alongside economies of scale, have favoured large production facilities.
The resulting industry has a substantial footprint. The IEA’s 2021 assessment attributed around 2% of global final energy consumption and 1.3% of energy-system CO₂ emissions to ammonia production, including the manufacture of its hydrogen feedstock.
That distinction matters. Haber-Bosch chemistry does not inherently require fossil fuels: renewable hydrogen can also supply it. Much of today’s environmental burden comes from making hydrogen from natural gas or coal, alongside the energy required to operate the production system. Tsubame targets the synthesis stage and the plant design it enables.
How Tsubame BHB’s electride catalyst enables smaller ammonia plants
Founded in April 2017 as a carve-out from Ajinomoto, according to its latest release, Tsubame uses electride catalyst technology developed by Hideo Hosono at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, now part of the Institute of Science Tokyo. In an electride, electrons act as negatively charged ions within a crystal structure.
The foundational research, published in Nature Chemistry in 2012, combined ruthenium with an electride support based on a cement-related material. Electron donation helped nitrogen molecules split on the metal surface, while the support’s ability to store hydrogen helped prevent hydrogen from blocking catalytic activity.
Tsubame says its technology enables ammonia synthesis at 300–400°C and 3–5 megapascals, approximately 30–50 bar. Lower pressure reduces mechanical demands on equipment. The company says its compact design also combines safety measures with a system that allows catalyst replacement, enabling installations close to demand, including within factory premises.
This is a change in catalysis and process engineering: nitrogen and hydrogen still react to form ammonia. The intended advantage is efficient production at a scale suitable for customers whose needs would not justify a conventional large plant.
Can local ammonia production reduce supply costs?
Tsubame argues that centralised supply can make fertiliser harder and more expensive to obtain in regions far from ammonia plants. Even where large facilities manufacture cheaply, transport and storage add to the cost paid by users.
That model must nevertheless compete with the economies of scale that made large plants dominant. A smaller installation may save on logistics while incurring higher production costs per tonne; its viability depends on hydrogen prices, utilisation, maintenance and local demand.
The surrounding infrastructure also matters. Tsubame’s published supply scope generally assumes that customers have hydrogen and nitrogen facilities, utilities and ammonia storage, although the company can discuss supplying additional equipment. A compact synthesis unit is therefore one part of the investment.
For agricultural customers, further processing may be necessary. In a 2023 JETRO interview, Koji Nakamura explained that markets using fertilisers such as ammonium sulphate or ammonium phosphate need downstream facilities to convert ammonia into those products.
Blue ammonia production at Kashiwazaki Hydrogen Park
Kashiwazaki demonstrates regional industrial supply rather than a complete local fertiliser chain. Mitsubishi Gas Chemical says it will use the ammonia in manufacturing at its Niigata factories and distribute it to nearby customers through its logistics network.
Tsubame previously identified the synthesis unit as having an annual capacity of 500 tonnes and confirmed trial production in January 2026. Its latest release dates the start of supply to 23 October; Mitsubishi Gas Chemical’s own announcement says it began receiving ammonia on 22 October. Both confirm the move into customer supply.
The project produces blue ammonia using hydrogen derived from domestic natural gas, with carbon dioxide generated during production injected underground. INPEX describes reduced synthesis energy requirements and more compact equipment as expected benefits of Tsubame’s technology, rather than publishing quantified savings in its October announcement.
“This is a major milestone for electride catalyst technology, which originated in a university laboratory and is now operating in a real-world setting,” president and CEO Koji Nakamura said in the 28 October release.
Tsubame reports orders for two synthesis plants in Japan, including Kashiwazaki. Its overseas activity remains earlier-stage: discussions and memoranda of understanding aimed at securing orders in Brazil and India.
What remains unproven about cost and emissions
Establishing those benefits requires sustained operating data. Energy consumption per tonne must distinguish the synthesis unit from hydrogen production and other equipment, while availability, catalyst lifetime and replacement costs will influence whether the plant delivers ammonia competitively.
Its environmental performance likewise depends on the hydrogen source, electricity supply and carbon capture performance. Renewable hydrogen offers another configuration, but changing the catalyst alone does not establish a low lifecycle footprint.
The announcements reviewed do not provide a complete comparison of delivered costs or lifecycle emissions. Kashiwazaki nevertheless supplies an operating example against which Tsubame’s proposition can be tested: whether milder synthesis conditions can make ammonia cleaner to produce and more affordable to obtain where existing supply chains fall short.
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