One plasma reactor family — Plasma-C — splits clean hydrogen from water and fixes nitrogen from air, using only electricity. We propose to bring both existing units to Qatar: one for nitrogen generation in the country's greenhouses, one for hydrogen testing on the path to the ammonia and LNG infrastructure QatarEnergy already owns. The world's cheapest solar power is what makes both work here.
Air or water, plus power. So the power price is the entire cost structure — and Qatar's 800 MW Siraj 1 plant set one of the lowest solar tariffs ever recorded, on the way to 4 GW by 2030. At that price hydrogen's electricity cost is under a dollar a kilogram and the nitrogen unit earns its best margin anywhere. No subsidy is needed for the arithmetic to work.
Ammonia producers buy on 5–10 year supply, industrial users on rolling terms, aerospace on 10–15 year take-or-pay. Turned into ammonia at −33 °C, hydrogen travels in the same class of cryogenic tank, ship, and terminal that carries LNG — about 70% of an LNG terminal's investment adapts to ammonia.
The same core, air-fed, makes nitrate directly in irrigation water at a measured 119 kWh/kg N. Qatar grows 75,000 tonnes of vegetables a year in 8,420 greenhouses on desalinated water. A unit that makes their nitrogen from air, water, and the roof's own solar is the food-security strategy in one machine.
Nitrogen and hydrogen are not additive on one reactor — they need separated compartments. Unit 1 goes to a commercial greenhouse for nitrogen; Unit 2 to Mesaieed, beside Ammonia-7, for hydrogen. Every output is metered and witnessed by a third-party engineer before anyone commits to a third unit.
Nothing here requires inventing a market. Each step produces exactly what the following step consumes, and the infrastructure at the far end is already built and being expanded in Qatar.
Unit 1 from Scotland, configured for nitrogen; Unit 2 commissioned turnkey in the hydrogen configuration.
Energy per kilogram, output, and purity for both products, metered by a third-party engineer over continuous runs.
Both units on Qatar solar at the world's lowest power price: nitrate to a greenhouse, hydrogen to a test loop.
The hydrogen chassis re-sized from 30 kW to 500 kW–1 MW so fixed service cost stops eating the margin.
Hydrogen into a synthesis loop becomes ammonia: dense, storable, and shippable in LNG-class infrastructure.
Ammonia-7 and QatarEnergy 8 at Mesaieed; the LNG fleet and terminals as the export route.
Developed by Dr. Yuri Zabulonov's team across three decades of post-Chornobyl environmental engineering, Plasma-C integrates three simultaneous mechanisms in one reactor. Air-fed, it fixes nitrogen into nitrate in the liquid. Water-fed, in a separated reducing compartment, it splits hydrogen. The same core, two chemistries, two configurations.
Cold plasma discharge within an intimate liquid–gas mixture generates reactive species directly in the water phase — the pathway to nitrate in air-fed mode and to hydrogen in water-fed mode.
The cyclone-driven "Tornado Effect" amplifies plasma–liquid contact area, sustaining the physical conditions that maximise yield across the full water volume.
A proprietary ball-bed configuration sustains discharge across a maximised reactive surface — high throughput without proportional energy scaling, and no membrane or precious-metal electrode to degrade.
The Plasma-C architecture is held as trade secret. Units are deployed as sealed, telemetered systems; the process never leaves the box. Trade-secret protection — counsel, assignment, and access controls — is a funded line in the programme budget.
On the left, a Plasma-C cell mid-run — the glow is the discharge forming reactive species in the water column. On the right, the drive waveform on the bench, captured live on the oscilloscope. This is the hardware class the programme ships to Qatar.
Modelled conservatively so it survives an independent check: 8,000 hours a year on grid-connected power at a blended 3¢/kWh, $1.5M per megawatt of capital, $48K fixed plus $0.25/kg O&M, 55 kWh/kg. Every input is in the paper's appendix.
Sold into the lowest-value vertical — ammonia feed at $4.20 — on grid power, a megawatt module returns 17% and pays back in five years. Every step toward the solar tariff or a higher-value buyer improves it: at 1.5¢ and $6.20 the payback is under two years.
| Levelised cost $/kg · power × capex/MW | $1.0M | $1.5M | $2.5M |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.5¢ — Siraj 1 solar tariff | $2.22 | $2.62 | $3.43 |
| 3.0¢ — base case, blended | $3.05 | $3.45 | $4.25 |
| 3.6¢ — industrial grid tariff | $3.38 | $3.78 | $4.58 |
145.5 t H₂ per MW per year. 15-year life, 8% WACC, no terminal value. Solar alone delivers ~2,200 h; the base case runs 8,000 h grid-connected, with the solar rows as upside.
Qatar has set out to grow 55% of its own vegetables by 2030. It already grows about 75,000 tonnes a year in 8,420 greenhouses on desalinated water, fertigated with nitrate-form nutrients. The country makes urea and ammonia at world scale for export; its greenhouses buy a different product, in small lots, by truck. A unit that makes that product on the farm is the nitrogen case in one sentence.
| Return 1 · nitrogen displaced, per unit per year | 1.5¢ | 2.0¢ | 3.0¢ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nitrogen made · 10 kW at 24/7 | 706 kg | 706 kg | 706 kg |
| Value at $4.50/kg N delivered | $3,177 | $3,177 | $3,177 |
| Electricity · 84,000 kWh | ($1,260) | ($1,680) | ($2,520) |
| Lime, water, other · $0.75/kg N | ($530) | ($530) | ($530) |
| Cash margin | $1,387 | $967 | $127 |
| Simple payback · capex × effect · 1.5¢ power | $45K | $35K | $25K |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nitrogen only | 32 yr | 25 yr | 18 yr |
| Nitrogen + 1% crop effect · $8,437/yr | 5.3 yr | 4.1 yr | 3.0 yr |
| Nitrogen + 3% crop effect · $22,555/yr | 2.0 yr | 1.6 yr | 1.1 yr |
One unit covers 1–1.5 hectares of protected horticulture. On that area a one-percent yield or quality effect is worth about $7,000 a year — five times the nitrogen it makes. The published literature reports a pooled +17% under controlled conditions; the greenhouse trial measures the real number on a Qatar crop in one season, against an artificial-water control, before anyone commits to a second unit.
What it is not: a competitor to Ammonia-7 or QAFCO's urea. At 500 mg NO₃/L the product is ideal for injection into irrigation water on the farm that makes it and far too dilute to truck anywhere. Unit 1 is a farm appliance, and it is sold as one.
Qatar's food-security strategy exists because imported inputs were once cut off overnight. A greenhouse with this unit makes its nitrogen from air, desalinated water, and its own roof. That value does not appear in a payback table, and it is the one a national buyer weighs first.
LNG is a cryogenic liquid at −162 °C; ammonia at −33 °C is the easier duty. An independent assessment (Fraunhofer ISI, 2022) finds about 70% of an LNG terminal's investment adapts to ammonia and about 50% to liquid hydrogen. Ammonia carriers are LNG-class gas ships from the same yards. The molecule changes; the tanks, ships, terminals, and operator stay the same.
Liquid hydrogen cannot be poured into an LNG tank; the honest reuse figure for LH₂ is about half the terminal. Plasma hydrogen does not displace a 1.2-million-tonne plant's feed; a module can be added to one. And QatarEnergy is not a counterparty today; it is the counterparty the path leads to, and every step toward it pays on its own economics.
100 MW of hydrogen modules is a realistic first decade — $150M of capital, one-fortieth of the solar Qatar is building anyway, and about 7% of Ammonia-7's feed. The 1,000 MW column is the physical ceiling against one plant, not a plan.
| Hydrogen · modules feeding the ammonia loop | 10 MW | 100 MW | 1,000 MW |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hydrogen per year | 1,455 t | 14,545 t | 145,455 t |
| Ammonia it makes | 8,300 t | 82,600 t | 826,000 t |
| Share of Ammonia-7's 1.2 Mt/yr | 0.7% | 6.9% | 69% |
| Capital at $1.5M/MW | $15M | $150M | $1.5B |
| EBITDA at $4.20/kg, 3¢ power | $2.8M | $28M | $285M |
| EBITDA at $6.20/kg | $5.8M | $58M | $575M |
| Solar to supply it (~2,200 h) | ~36 MW | ~360 MW | ~3.6 GW |
Both existing units, relocated and commissioned by the physicists who built them, on Qatar solar, with every output witnessed. Documented programme capital is repaid first in the distribution waterfall, ahead of any split between the parties.
*Relocation carried at the quoted UK-to-US figure, to be re-quoted for Doha; not material to the total. A further ~$205K of import and measurement budget precedes the programme.
The founding team carries commercialisation, programme execution, agricultural deployment, and capital formation, with Dr. Yuri Zabulonov as inventor and chief scientist behind the Plasma-C core. The fifth seat is reserved for a Qatar-based founder to lead the programme on the ground.
Founder of DYRT, the soil and water collective; leads partner and capital relationships for the programme.
Plasma Water Technologies. UN COP Blue Zone speaker on decentralised energy; led commercialisation of advanced plasma and fusion-adjacent power ventures.
Multi-generation commercial grower; leads greenhouse deployment, fertigation integration, and the nitrogen trial.
Leads strategic partnerships and expert alliances, including the scientific collaborations behind the platform.
A Qatar-based founder to host the programme, hold the relationships with the greenhouse sector, Mesaieed, and QatarEnergy, and lead the company's presence in Doha.
Enquire →Nitrate in a greenhouse and a measured kilogram of hydrogen at Mesaieed by spring. The full paper, with model inputs for independent re-calculation, is available on request.