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The world is undergoing an energy transition to reduce CO2 emissions and mitigate climate change. The COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war have further increased the interest of Europe and Western countries to invest in the hydrogen economy as an alternative to fossil fuels. Hydrogen can significantly reduce geopolitical risks if the diversity of future hydrogen energy suppliers is increased.
Hydrogen is a particularly challenging product to transport safely. One option is to liquefy hydrogen, which requires cooling to 20 Kelvin (-253 °C). This is an expensive process and requires around 30% of the energy stored within the hydrogen.
A pioneering approach developed by IIASA researchers and colleagues proposes solid air (nitrogen or oxygen) as a medium for recycling cooling energy across the hydrogen liquefaction supply chain. At standard temperature and pressure, air is a gas, but under certain conditions, it can become a liquid or solid. Solid Air Hydrogen Liquefaction (SAHL) consists of storing the cooling energy from the regasification of hydrogen, by solidifying air, and transporting the solid air back to where the hydrogen was liquefied. The solid air is then used to reduce the energy consumption for liquefying hydrogen. The process is divided into four main steps: hydrogen regasification, solid air transportation, hydrogen liquefaction, and liquid hydrogen transportation.
[...] In their paper, the authors also address the ongoing debate in industry and academia to find the best alternative to transport hydrogen by sea:
"Compared to ammonia or methanol, liquefied hydrogen is the best option for several reasons. Transporting hydrogen with ammonia and other molecules would require around 30% of the energy transported to extract the hydrogen. The hydrogen is liquefied where electricity is cheap. Also, SAHL can lower energy consumption for hydrogen liquefaction by 25 to 50%," Hunt concludes.
Journal Reference:
Hunt, J., Montanari, P., Hummes D., et al. (2023). Solid air hydrogen liquefaction, the missing link of the hydrogen economy. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2023.03.405
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday May 23 2023, @03:29PM (1 child)
Instead of shoving protons thru steel pipes, someone should try pushing electrons thru copper pipes. I've heard there's an entire technological infrastructure built around that.
Note that a kilo of hydrogen stores way more energy than a kilo of lithium battery, but the battery requires very little support infrastructure so for uses smaller than a literal spaceship rocket, the battery usually wins now-a-days in terms of overall system mass/volume/density. So for most applications smaller than a moon rocket its better to transport electricity in the form of post-2020 lithium batteries than in the form of liq H2.
Most non-electrical ways to get H2 involve turning about five barrels-equivalent of crude oil (or coal) into about one barrel-equivalent of liq H2 so the carbon energy companies like that greenwashing very very much as theoretically their product would quintuple demand by implementing a "green H2 economy". Most are variations on the classic "steam plus an excess of white hot carbon equals CO2 and H2" followed by lots of processing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2023, @03:34PM
> Instead of shoving protons thru steel pipes,
Besides all your other good reasons, it's also bad for the steel pipes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_embrittlement [wikipedia.org]