Muhaimin Iqbal
Author

BioHydrogen Economic Empowerer

Advanced Renewable

Tue , 14 May 2024 11:29 WIB

Hydrogen (H2), as an ideal fuel, is currently still hampered by production and logistics problems to become a mass fuel. From a production side, the majority is still depending on fossils, while from a logistics side pure H2 requires a very high pressure of 700 Bar or a temperature of minus 253 degrees Celsius, both of which are very expensive and risky.

However, these two obstacles were overcome at the same time with the BioHydrogen concept that we are promoting. For its production, H2 is processed through biomass or charcoal gasification and purified through the Water Gas Shift (WGS) reaction.

For logistics, H2 can be 'stored' in carriers which can be oxygenates, hydrocarbons, and even charcoal itself. During the logistics process - storage and delivery, the H2 is stored in the carrier so it is easy and cheap, the H2 is actually delivered as pure H2 in-situ and in-time, on the spot and when it is needed only.

The use of these carriers also can deliver much more H2 than H2 in the carrier molecule itself. For Oxygenates, for example, the H2 that can be delivered by methanol is 150% of the H2 carried in the methanol molecule, while for DME and Ethanol, the H2 delivered can reaches 200% of the H2 carried by their respective molecules. This additional H2 comes from the steam used to reform the oxygenates.

What's even more interesting is charcoal, charcoal itself is just carbon, but when it is gasified and reacted in WGS in-situ and in-time, it can deliver H2 equal to 33% of the weight of the charcoal. This is ideal for producing H2 both for power/electricity and for industrial feedstock such as fertilizer/ammonia factories, etc. But for transportation, of course you don't want to bother carrying charcoal in your car, what's the solution?

Our research found that there is an H2 carriers that is very suitable for the transportation industry, namely hydrocarbons, they are very effective H2 carriers. Hydrocarbons such as gasoline and diesel are already in liquid form at STP (Standard Temperature and Pressure), the transportation infrastructure is also very massive and well spread already, so no need for new infrastructure.

Moreover, each hydrocarbon molecule can deliver H2 which is much greater than the previous carrier. The graph below shows the comparison of H2 that can be delivered by each carrier. We can see that using hydrocarbon as a carrier will provide the highest H2 delivery in unit volume and weight.

When hydrocarbon is used as an H2 carrier, there are three sources of H2 that will be delivered, namely from the hydrocarbon molecules themselves, from the steam used to reform the hydrocarbon and from the steam used for the WGS reaction. In the example below, if we use Octane (C8H18) for the H2 Carrier for an example, the total H2 delivered reaches 278% of the H2 carried in the octane molecule!

This hydrocarbons Steam Reforming and Shift (SRS) uses the XH2M reactor below.