Safe design of technology for hydrogen as a green energy carrier

can you imagine a world without fossil

fuels

we might not go around thinking about

this but it’s an interesting thought

what should we then use as energy for

transport

for power and for heating

we see here the extent of the fossil

energy production in the world for one

year and this unit mto is the energy

equivalent of a million tons of

oil which is a staggeringly large unit

now fossil fuels are not renewable

energy sources

and the use of them produced co2 and

other climate gases

and at the moment our energy supply is

from burning things we find in the

ground

and that’s really not sustainable in the

long run

now let’s compare the fossil energy

production to the renewable energy

production

as you can see the amount of renewable

energy production in the world is

very low compared to the non-renewable

energy and especially fossil fuels

even though the production of renewable

energy is increasing

now since the world’s energy demand is

also increasing we still have a long way

to go

to be able to make the world independent

of fossil fuels

the world is now trying to find

alternatives for these fossil fuels

and the most likely solution is

renewable electricity

and that is electricity from solar wind

tide

and many other sources now these are

great sources for producing electricity

but we need to be able to transport

and store our energy in a practical way

and the promising solution to store and

transport electrical energy is by making

hydrogen

from electricity and water a hydrogen

can be stored

as a gas or a liquid and when you use

that to produce electricity in the fuel

cell

for the power exhaust is only pure water

now several local national governments

are now seeing if this can be one of the

solutions to reduce our dependency on

fossil fuels

and hydrogen from renewable electricity

really is a great solution for deer

carbonization

we can fill our cars our ships planes or

trains just like with petroleum fuel

and the cost will probably not be

significantly higher

and this is the part that we can call

the hydrogen economy

but what i really want to talk about is

hydrogen safety

one challenge of introducing hydrogen

for fuel is that hydrogen is a

combustible gas

hydrogen is safe as long as it’s

contained in tanks or in equipment

but if an accidental release of hydrogen

from failing equipment

we lose containment and release hydrogen

can form explosive clouds if mixed with

air

hydrogen is also very reactive so that

the potential explosion can be quite

severe

however this chemical property that

makes hydrogen

this reactive also makes it a great fuel

for a new fuel to get public acceptance

the risk of using the fuel will need to

be as

low or lower as for a traditional

alternative

since hydrogen behaves very differently

than for instance gasoline

we need to think about safety in a

different way

through our group’s research we are

studying how the design of systems are

influencing the effect of loss of

containment

and the goal of our research is to make

applications like

cars or ships and constructions like

parking houses and tunnels

safe to use for hydrogen i’d like to

show an example of our research into the

effects of the sign on explosions

in these experiments a hydrogen was

released inside the container

with obstacles this picture shows the

inside of the container where these

pallets are simulating different types

of equipment

inside the room hydrogen was released

inside and then

ignited after letting it mix with air

now let’s see what happened

the amount of hydrogen released was 300

grams

and the explosion pressure was large

enough to lift the container off ground

even though the door was open the

explosion was quite

severe if we remove this obstacle

inside the container and repeat the

experiment we can clearly see

a huge difference the container is now

completely empty and the door is still

open

it’s not that easy to see what happened

was it there is hardly any effect from

the explosion

for the first experiment the obstacles

inside restrict the flow of gases

out of the room and cause a stronger

pressure buildup inside

this stronger pressure buildup will lead

to more severe

explosion without the obstacles the gas

can freely leave

and there are nearly no effect of an

explosion

this knowledge is important to make sure

we can create a safe environment for

hydrogen as a new fuel

we need to make sure that we understand

the physical effects that control the

consequences of an incident so that we

can make sure that the design of

equipment and possibly surroundings is

safe for people

and society and the devil really is in

the details when designing safe systems

for combustible gases

like hydrogen you must always design an

application or system by taking into

account that unwanted leaks of hydrogen

can happen

this can happen due to collisions

external fires or

failing equipment other reasons the

preferred design feature is of course

as long as you can freely that hydrogen

float away smaller releases

are not dangerous at all but this might

not be possible

if we need to have a room like the

container in the videos

it is critically important that we

design these structures to be able to

minimize the effects of

incidents like unwanted hydrogen

releases

and like we saw in this video some

obstacles inside the room will

significantly increase the effect of an

explosion

even though the door was open for the

gas to leave

it was ventilated so without obstacles

there was hardly an explosion at all

to bring the knowledge we have gained

through our research and new knowledge

from future research

is critical to introduce hydrogen into

society in a safe manner

the world’s goal should be to bring our

energy production from fossil fuel to

renewable sources

and hydrogen looks to be part of this

transition to bring a renewable fuel to

the public

to gain public acceptance for the new

fuels a safe introduction

is crucial technology development will

have to

include safe design of all parts of the

value chain from production to consumer

so that accidents will not happen and

will not be a show stopper

you