US Patent Issued to Air Products and Chemicals on Dec. 16 for "Process and apparatus for cracking ammonia" (British Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,497,290, issued on Dec. 16, was assigned to Air Products and Chemicals Inc. (Allentown, Pa.).

"Process and apparatus for cracking ammonia" was invented by Andrew Shaw (Sunbury on Thames, Great Britain) and Simon Craig Saloway (Surrey, Great Britain).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present invention concerns a process and apparatus for cracking ammonia gas at super-atmospheric pressure in catalyst-filled reactor tubes in a furnace. The tubes each have an upstream layer of a first catalyst and a downstream layer of a second catalyst, the first catalyst being more active than the second catalyst. Having the more active catalyst upstream r...