The majority of developed nations have reported clean energy policies to decrease their CO2 emissions, with the aim of reaching “net zero” within the next few decades. Fossil fuel usage should be progressively stopped if this goal is to be accomplished, with alternative energy sources compensating for the unavoidable deficit.
Infrastructure must support whatever energy source comes out on top to create and move the large amounts of fuel required to sustain society’s constantly increasing dependence on electrified technologies.
Hydrogen is a favorable substitute for oil and gas. With the European Commission featuring it profoundly in Europe’s path to decarbonization, hydrogen-based technologies are set to experience speedy development in the next 10 years.
Greener Hydrogen
Hydrogen has immense prospects as a green energy source, but its eco-friendliness relies completely on the amount of carbon emitted during its production. The huge majority of worldwide hydrogen manufacture is so-called “brown hydrogen”, produced when fossil fuel is processed—among other operations—which discharges large amounts of carbon into the air.
While these detrimental emissions can be decreased through carbon capture to create “blue” hydrogen, the most eco-friendly method involves using renewable energy sources to drive electrolysis, disintegrating water into its fundamental parts of oxygen and “green” hydrogen.
A Partnership with Electric Chemistry
At present, only about 2% of the world’s hydrogen manufacture can be categorized as green. Clean Power Hydrogen (CPH2)—a core industry player based in the UK—is seeking to alter this with its unique membrane-free electrolysis and cryogenic separation techniques.
The company produces high-specification ISO units—self-contained oxygen and hydrogen production systems—and is expanding the technology to boost its efficiency and output.
A vital segment of CPH2’s market is hydrogen fuel cell makers—firmly bound by purity ISO specifications—making it compulsory to precisely measure and declare pollution levels.
The gas analyzers we were using are only accurate to within ±2%, which is insufficient for some of our customers’ most stringent applications. After explaining our issues to several suppliers, Thermo Fisher Scientific was the only company to offer its assistance, generously loaning us a mass spectrometer to help us gain a true measure of product purity.
Bridie Haxby, Lead Scientist, Thermo Scientific–Chemical Analysis–Environmental and Process Monitoring
The Prima Candidate
The Thermo Fisher Scientific Prima BT mass spectrometer substituted CPH2’s multitude of incumbent gas analyzers, significantly decreasing the intricacy of its analytical setup. This system enables instantaneous measurement of numerous gas species at several locations in the process, all within one unit.
The high accuracy of the MS instrument—owing to its magnetic sector technology—enabled CPH2 to verify the purity of the hydrogen and oxygen streams close to ±0.1%.
We were always confident that our process was capable of producing hydrogen with 99.99% purity, but it took the accuracy of the Prima BT to confirm this and give us the data needed to increase the efficacy and efficiency of our technologies.
Bridie Haxby, Lead Scientist, Thermo Scientific—Chemical Analysis—Environmental and Process Monitoring
“It will allow us to perform factory acceptance testing on every ISO unit leaving the factory, providing customers with certificates stating the exact level of impurities in the product stream. It has also given us the ability to estimate production plant efficiencies, providing customers with an accurate prediction of the power consumption per kg of hydrogen produced,” Bridie Haxby added.
Endorsing Eco-Electrolysis
The CPH2 team was so impressed by the Prima BT that they planned to buy a unit of their own, which is currently in use in R&D and factory acceptance applications.
Thermo Fisher Scientific is happy to collaborate with CPH2 in the search for green hydrogen. The accuracy of the Prima BT mass spectrometer assists in taking electrolysis and cryogenic separation to an advanced level, offering end-users the revolutionary technologies needed to give renewable hydrogen manufacture the green light.
References
- EUR-LEX. EUR-Lex - 52020DC0301 - EN - EUR-Lex. Available at: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52020DC0301.
- ISO. ISO 14687:2019. Hydrogen fuel cell quality – Product specification. Available at: https://www.iso.org/standard/69539.html.
This information has been sourced, reviewed and adapted from materials provided by Thermo Fisher Scientific – Environmental and Process Monitoring Instruments.
For more information on this source, please visit Thermo Fisher Scientific – Environmental and Process Monitoring Instruments.