Decarbonation
Hydrogen gas (H2) or Dihydrogen is a gas. At normal ambient temperature, it is made of two atoms of the chemical hydrogen element (H). With a density of 7% only of air, Hydrogen is well known as the lightest gas.
Comments
Hydrogen appeared very soon after the Big Bang at the origin of the universe. Today, it represents 75% of the normal matter, mostly under plasma state in sun and stars. On earth, it stands in quantities of organic compounds and, of course, in the water (H2O) after combining with Oxygen (O2).
Highly inflammable, Hydrogen is challenging to contain because of the very small size of the molecule. Therefore, it requires purposely designed materials and equipment to be stored, piped, or measured. In addition, its dew point at -253 °C does not help for long distance transportation, as per example for export to global markets.
Despite all these difficulties, Hydrogen raises a prior attention to decarbonate industries as it can be easily combined with carbon dioxide (CO2) to produce various molecules.
Hydrogen Usages
In history, the chemical or electronic industries used Hydrogen in many ways. But today, Hydrogen attracts massive investments for two key usages.
The first one appeared on the early 2020s. At that time, Hydrogen is considered as an End Product for the export to global markets and mobility. These investments are well identified as Hydrogen projects.
The second one came up a bit later where Hydrogen is used as a Mean Product in combination with CO2 to produce various molecules. Typically, ammonia, ethanol, ethylene, syngas, renewable diesel, renewable gasoline, renewable natural gas (RNG), or sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) projects use Hydrogen as a base.
Hydrogen as End product may become a huge market in the future, to be compared with oil and gas. But it will take decades as the demand, the infrastructures, the corresponding equipment are still missing. The investments in development and projects count in $billions but will face number of roadblocks and delays.
In opposite way, Hydrogen applications as Mean Product run full speed. The projects may be smaller, with less visibility because they are not even identified as “Hydrogen Project”. Most of the time, these investments refer to the end product made out of this Hydrogen intermediate molecule, as per the examples above. These projects require from the potential suppliers to better understand the process underneath these Hydrogen usages.
Hydrogen Colors
Today, Hydrogen is a gas that may be produced from different sources. Engineers’ communities painted the most common Hydrogen production processes with different colors as following:
Grey Hydrogen is produced by natural gas steam cracking or air separation. These processes are still today the most common practices despite their massive CO2 emissions.
Blue or Purple Hydrogen are based on the same processes as above but with the addition of different carbon capture technologies in order to prevent any CO2 emissions in the atmosphere in both cases.
Green Hydrogen comes from water electrolysis powered by renewable energies.
Yellow Hydrogen refers to Green Hydrogen powered more specifically by solar renewable energy source.
Red Hydrogen has been created to describe green hydrogen powered by a nuclear source.
Brown or Black Hydrogen is produced out of coal, thus with large quantities of CO2 emissions.
White or Native Hydrogen is occurring as a natural deposit in the underground. Studies and discussions are ongoing to define if it should be considered as a renewable Hydrogen. At the difference with natural gas or crude oil, this native hydrogen has not a fossil origin. It results from a natural chemical process of water drained through specific types of grounds and undergrounds releasing hydrogen. Anyway, if not fossil, this white hydrogen follows a very slow life cycle making the use of white hydrogen very fragile and uncertain at large scale.
For more details regarding hydrogen projects in the world, have a look into www.projectsmartexplorer.com
