Seminar Report
Seminar Report
Seminar Report
By:
The opportunity to work and to support their safe operation has provided us many
opportunities to contribute and also to constantly learn the art of engineering. We are thankful
for the support provided to us by plant management in permitting us to share some of this
experience for the benefit of others in the industry.
We are honored to be part of Code committees in the field of HYDROGEN FUEL CELL, and
thank our colleagues, our friends of so many years on Code committees, for the constant give
and-take that takes place in translating everyday knowledge into codes and standards, and
eventually into books like this one.
At times, with the day-to-day emergencies, we thought we may not make our deadlines, but
thanks ...
ABSTRACT
Use of fossil fuels has become a part of daily energy needs and their requirement is
increasing with the passage of time. Consumption of fossil fuels gives rise to the greenhouse
gas emissions in the environment and causes ambient air pollution, which have now become
global concerns. This coupled with the limited reserves of fossil fuels have encouraged and
promoted the development and use of new and renewable energy sources, including
hydrogen energy as an energy carrier. The technologies for production of hydrogen from new
and renewable sources of energy are in the process of development and demonstration. In
order to meet the future energy demands in sustainable and environment friendly manner,
technologies are required to be developed for the production, storage and applications of
hydrogen in transportation sector as well as for portable & stationary power generation.
With a view to accelerate development of hydrogen energy sector in India, a National
Hydrogen Energy Road Map (NHERM) was prepared and adopted by the National Hydrogen
Energy Board in January, 2006 for implementation. The main objective of NHERM was to
identify the pathways, which will lead to gradual introduction of hydrogen energy, accelerate
commercialization efforts and facilitate the creation of hydrogen energy infrastructure in the
country. NHERM covered all aspects of hydrogen energy development in India including its
production, storage, transport, delivery, application, codes & standards, public awareness
and capacity building. NHERM formed the basis for implementation of Hydrogen Energy
Programme in the country from 2006-07 onwards.
NHERM suggested modifying and upgrading it later based on field experience in the country
and new developments worldwide. Accordingly, a Steering Committee on Hydrogen Energy
and Fuel Cells was constituted by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE),
Government of India to advise the Ministry and steer the overall activities of Hydrogen
Energy & Fuel Cells under the Chairmanship of Dr. K. Kasturirangan, the then Member
(Science), Planning Commission (now known as NITI Aayog), Government of India on
31.05.2012 for a period of three years. The duration of this Committee was later extended
upto June, 2016.
As per recommendation of Steering Committee on Hydrogen Energy and Fuel Cells in its
1stmeeting, five Sub-Committees were constituted by the Ministry on the following aspects of
hydrogen energy and fuel cells for in-depth discussions, re-visiting NHERM and to suggest
further course of action.
I am confident that implementation of the recommendations of this report will bring
paradigm shift in the area of hydrogen energy and fuel cell technologies in the country.
Table of content
Introduction...........................................................................................................................01
Hydrogen production in india................................................... ............................................02
Fuel cell development in india................................................... .........................................05
Transportation through fuel................................................... ................................................07
1. Introduction:-
"Earth has enough resources to meet people's needs, but will never have enough to satisfy
people's greed" and “The people on earth should act as 'trustees' and use natural resources
wisely, as our moral responsibility to ensure that we bequeath to the future generations a
healthy planet.”
- Mahatma Gandhi
“I believe that water will one day be employed as fuel, that hydrogen and oxygen which
constitute it, used singly or together will furnish an inexhaustible source of heat and light of
an intensity of which coal is not capable…………………water will be coal of the future”
- JULES VERNE Mysterious Island in 1876
. “With a new national commitment, our scientists and engineers will overcome obstacles to
taking these cars from laboratory to showroom, so that the first car driven by a child born
today could be powered by hydrogen and pollution-free“…..
- George Bush On Freedom Fuel
Man’s dependence on fossil fuels has made a deep impact on energy and food security. This
has led to exhaustion of fossil fuels resources, emission of harmful gases like carbon
monoxide, nitrous oxide, sulphur dioxide, etc., which pollute the environment and adversely
affect the health of living beings on the earth. There is excessive emission of carbon dioxide
also. As result of which, level of carbon dioxide is rising in the earth’s atmosphere and
creating greenhouse effect on earth. Due to this effect, the heat generated (heat received from
sun, generated in industries, households and automobiles etc.) on the earth, remains in the
atmosphere.
(ii) Partial Oxidation: These reformers are more compact and used to produce
hydrogen from residual oil. Small capacity reformers are commercially available.
B. Electrolysis of water
(i) Alkaline water electrolysis: It is a matured technology, less expensive and is
commercially available (in MW range) technology with hydrogen production 760 Nm³/h.
These electrolysers face major challenges of corrosion and poisoning of electrodes. The
largest existing alkaline electrolysis plants are 160 MW plant in Aswan, Egypt and 22 MW
plant operating in Peru (pressurized operation).
(ii) Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) based water
electrolysers: The drawbacks of alkaline water electrolysers were overcome by the
development of solid PEM water electrolysers, which has lower stack life. These are costlier
and available in lower capacity range from 0.06 to 75 Nm³/hr but are more reliable. Council
of Scientific and Industrial Research - Central Electro-Chemical Research Institute
(CSIRCECRI), SPIC Science Foundation (SSF), Chennai; Centre of Fuel Cell Technology
(CFCT), Chennai and Jawaharlal Nehru Technical University (JNTU), Hyderabad developed
alkaline water electrolysers. CSIR-CECRItransferred these technologies to M/s. Eastern
Electrolysers, New Delhi for further development and commercialisation. SSF obtained
energy consumption is around 2.0 kWh/Nm3 whereas CFCT, Chennai 1.40kWh/Nm3 . 20
(vi) Oxidation of reactive metals such as. Li, Na, Mg, Al, Zn with water,
Hydrogen is widely used in pressure vessels for on-board mobile applications, stationary
application for dispensing hydrogen at re-fueling stations and at sites for stationary power
generation. The pressure vessels are made of special alloys and also with reinforced
composite carbon fiber so as not to face problem of brittleness. Currently, hydrogen is being
stored in compressed form at 350 bar (5,000 psi) in on-board in demonstration vehicles and
700 bar (10,000 psi) in Type IV carbon composite cylinders. Carbon composite cylinders to
store hydrogen at 700 bar (10,000 psi) are not being manufactured in the country.
The cryogenic hydrogen is to be stored in specially insulated vessels at (-) 252.880C. The
storage vessels may be made of FCC with special insulation, comprising double walled with
vacuum in between, opacifiers and multi-layer insulations. Liquid organic hydrides are also
potential candidates for hydrogen storage and delivery. The concept has been demonstrated
successfully at laboratory level. Further work is being pursued.
Rare earth systems based on La, transition metals based on Ti and of late light metal based
such as Mg have been identified as the candidates. Two crucial parameters determine the
performance metrics of metal hydrides, namely gravimetric percentage and desorption
temperature. La Ni5 with additions of Ce and Al have desorption temperature in the range
from 40 C to 140 C, with maximum storage of 1.2wt% H2 and Mg based materials with as
high a storage as 6wt% with desorption temperature of 250 - 3000C. The lowest desorption
temperature achieved is 2100C with 3.5 wt% storage capacity. 25 Although a number of
intermetallic alloys have been prepared and their hydrogenation potentials assessed, a few
have suitable combination of properties that permit their use for hydrogen storage or other
applications. The most viable candidates include alloys with the following compositions: A2B
(e.g.,Mg2Ni), AB (e.g.,TiFe), AB2 (e.g.,ZrMn2) and AB5 (e.g.,LaNi5).
A variety of solid-state hydrogen storage materials viz. MgH2, Mg2NiH4, NaAlH4, other
alanates, borohydrates (gravimetric capacity of >7wt%), commercial hydrides such as
FeTiH2 and LaNi5H6, adsorbents like carbon, nano-structured carbons (including CNTs)
MoFs and hydrogen clathrate hydrate have been investigated for hydrogenation and
dehydrogenation reaction conditions and their kinetics, retention of cycling capacity,
susceptibility to impurities and reversible capacities. The need for material with practical
operative conditions of pressure (1-10 bar) and temperature (300C-1000C) has simulated the
interest of many researchers. Other major areas of research are improvement of kinetics of
hydrogen uptake/release and enhancement of cycling capacity.
Pure hydrogen physisorption has been demonstrated at cryogenic temperatures (up to ca. 6
wt% H2) for which extremely high surface area carbon is required. Pure atomic H
chemisorption has also been demonstrated to ca. 8 wt% H2, but the covalent-bound H is
liberated only at impractically high temperatures (above ca. 400°C). The activated carbon
materials made from carbon nanotubes, graphite nanofibers, known as next generation of
energy systems are capable of storing hydrogen.
APPLICATIONS OTHER THAN TRANSPORTATION:-
Hydrogen has the potential to replace LPG and CNG for cooking because it has superior
characteristics to LPG and PNG fuel in terms of ignitability, low ignition delay and higher
flame stability. Catalytic burning of the hydrogen in the home cooker is the best way to use
the hydrogen for 27 cooking. Several catalysts such as metals like Cu, Zn, Fe, Ni, Co; alloys
like Co-Mn-Ag; storage alloys like MmNi5, ZrFe2 can dissociate H2. Catalytic techniques for
hydrogen fueled catalytic cookers (i) are porous ceramic plate embedded with platinum in
pores for flameless situation and (ii) new catalysts for hydrogen catalytic combustion
1) Microbial fuel cells employ living cells such as microorganisms as the catalyst
and 2) 36 Enzymetic bio-fuel cells,
which use different enzymes to catalyze the redox reaction of the fuels. The production /
consumption cycle of bio-fuels is considered to be carbon neutral and, in principle, more
sustainable than that of conventional fuel cells. The potential areas for its power application
are portable electronics, biomedical instruments, environmental studies, military and space
research etc. In India, many institutions are active to develop suitable electrodes materials or
tweak the microorganism. Mediator-less and membrane-less MFCs have been demonstrated
on laboratory scale.
Hydrogen fueled automobiles use hydrogen on-board to generate motive power either
directly through internal combustion engine or indirectly, I,e, first to electrical energy
through fuel cell then to motive power. Hydrogen can be used in different configurations of
Internal Combustion (IC) engine such as spark ignition (SI) engine, compression ignition
(CI) engine / dual fuel engine, CNG dual fuel engine and HCCI engine. High power outputs
and low NOx emissions can be achieved by direct injection of hydrogen in SI engine.
Hydrogen may also be used with biogas or other low grade gaseous fuels in this mode for the
applications in locomotives and in stationary power generation. Hydrogen can be a good
additive in the case of biogas diesel HCCI operation, as it raises the efficiency and extends the
load range. Engine control units for dual fuel, HCCI and direct hydrogen injection engines
with effective control strategies, in some cases to switch between modes have to be developed.
There is need to develop after treatment device for NOx reduction (Lean NOX trap, SCR etc.),
which will be helpful in improving power output while engine operates at a higher
equivalence ratio. This is very relevant for heavy duty engines operating on hydrogen. The
application of hydrogen blends with various fuels like CNG, LPG, Diesel etc. also need to be
studied.
Globally, several R&D project have been undergoing in various parts of the world for
developing hydrogen based Internal Combustion Engines. Some of the significant project
were (i) HyICE programme in Europe by European Commission and BMW in collaboration
with various industry and academia for both single and multi-cylinder engines for various
fuel injection strategies like Direct Injection and Cryogenic Fuel Injection (ii) Next
Generation Environment Friendly Vehicle Development and Commercialization project in
Japan for heavy duty engines Direct Injection Hydrogen IC engines (iii) Development of two
hydrogen engines at Tokyo City University turbocharged with Port Fuel 43 Injection for light
duty trucks with hybrid power train (iv) Homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI)
with high compression ratio to overcome the issue of low emission versus better combustion
rate and thermal efficiency (iv) Direct Injection to keep combustion confined and away from
combustion chamber walls to lower NOx and have longer durability and sustained
performance of Direct Injection Injectors. Thus, presently hydrogen powered IC engines are
more suitable for heavy vehicle rather than fuel cells vehicles due to the higher specific power
output.
6.ADVANTAGES:-
Fuel cells have various advantages compared to conventional power sources, such as
internal combustion engines or batteries. Although some of the fuel cells' attributes are only
valid for some applications, most advantages are more general.
Benefits include:
• Fuel cells have a higher efficiency than diesel or gas engines.
• Most fuel cells operate silently, compared to internal combustion engines. They are
therefore ideally suited for use within buildings such as hospitals.
• Fuel cells can eliminate pollution caused by burning fossil fuels; for hydrogen fuelled
fuel cells, the only by-product at point of use is water.
• If the hydrogen comes from the electrolysis of water driven by renewable energy, then
using fuel cells eliminates greenhouse gases over the whole cycle.
• Fuel cells do not need conventional fuels such as oil or gas and can therefore reduce
economic dependence on oil producing countries, creating greater energy security for
the user nation.
• Since hydrogen can be produced anywhere where there is water and a source of
power, generation of fuel can be distributed and does not have to be grid-dependent.
• The use of stationary fuel cells to generate power at the point of use allows for a
decentralised power grid that is potentially more stable.
• Low temperature fuel cells (PEMFC, DMFC) have low heat transmission which makes
them ideal for military applications.
• Higher temperature fuel cells produce high-grade process heat along with electricity
and are well suited to cogeneration applications (such as combined heat and power
for residential use).
• Operating times are much longer than with batteries, since doubling the operating time
needs only doubling the amount of fuel and not the doubling of the capacity of the
unit itself.
• Unlike batteries, fuel cells have no "memory effect" when they are getting refuelled. •
The maintenance of fuel cells is simple since there are few moving parts in the system.
(iii) As a fuel:
Hydrogen will be used as a fuel for ‘zero-emissions’ vehicles, and for aircraft.
(iv) In heating:
Hydrogen will also be used to heat offices and homes.
Infrastructure:
Many new facilities and systems must be built before hydrogen can play a bigger role and
become a widely used alternative to gasoline.
4. The pipeline transports the hydrogen to a compressed gas terminal for its compression
and loading in compressed gas tube trailors.