A probabilistic techno-economic assessment of hydrogen production via ammonia decomposition

Ammonia has emerged as one of the most promising hydrogen carriers due to its high hydrogen density, established infrastructure, and favorable storage and transportation characteristics. This study develops a probabilistic techno-economic framework for evaluating industrial-scale hydrogen production via thermocatalytic ammonia decomposition. A rigorous Aspen Plus® process simulation was integrated with a stochastic economic assessment based on Monte Carlo simulation to quantify the uncertainty associated with the Levelized Cost of Hydrogen (LCOH). The process achieved an ammonia conversion of 97.1% and produced hydrogen with a purity of 99.97%. The deterministic analysis resulted in an LCOH of US$5.54 kg -1 H 2 , while the probabilistic assessment yielded a mean LCOH of US$7.35 kg -1 H 2 . The results revealed a markedly asymmetric distribution of hydrogen production costs, identifying ammonia price as the dominant economic driver and demonstrating that deterministic LCOH values alone underestimate investment risk. The proposed framework provides a robust decision-support tool for evaluating investment risk in emerging ammonia-based hydrogen supply chains.