University of the Punjab Conference Portal, Engineering Congress (Online) on Energy and Environment

Font Size:  Small  Medium  Large
Hydrogen Production and separation for decentralized power generation for rural areas of Pakistan
Fahad Rehman, Muhammad Sarfraz Akram

##manager.scheduler.building##: Institute of Energy & Environmental Engineering
##manager.scheduler.room##: Symposium 4. Hydrogen Energy and Catalysis:https://meet.google.com/rku-pcuo-buk
Date: 2020-12-22 02:00 PM – 02:15 PM
Last modified: 2020-12-21

Abstract


Ensuring supply of sustainable and environmentally friendly energy resource is one of the greatest challenges face by Homosepions. Renewable energies such as hydal, solar and wind energy has demonstrated their potential at commercial scale. However, they are intermittent in nature, have high principle cost and only feasible at limited geographical locations. Hydrogen, as a secondary energy carrier has been on the scene for more than three decades now. It has highest energy density and it does not produce any greenhouse gas-unless greenhouse nature of water vapours are argued about which is, entirely, a scope of another talk. Hydrogen is mainly produced from steam methane reforming which as the name suggest neither green nor sustainable. Electrolysis, when carried out using a renewable electricity such as wind or solar energy, produce hydrogen efficiently. However, the principle cost of the electrolysis is fairly high and is heavily dependent on the scale of electrolyzer. Plasmolysis of water/vapours is an emerging technology for the production of hydrogen. Plasma, as suggested the fourth state of matter, can be used to produce hydrogen. Unlike a chemical reaction which often consists of three/four steps. The plasma-chemical reaction consists of several pathways-sometimes in hundreds.  The key lies in developing and analyzing the kinetics of the plasma-chemical reactions. The kinetics of the reaction, then, can be used to design a plasma reactor. The energy efficiency of the plasmolysis can be improved by reducing the dimension of the reactor to create plasma microreactors. The throughput can be increased by multiplexing the reactors. Plasmolysis has a relatively low principle cost. When integrated with renewable energy such as solar it can overcome the intermittent nature of the renewable energy and provide a sustainable energy resource. This approach can be particularly helpful for addressing the electrification of rural areas of Pakistan. Instead of “hooking” them with the main grid, which can be very cost intensive, several decentralized power generation units integrating solar/wind with hydrogen energy can be built. This could solve twofold problem of energy and environment of Pakistan.