[ heat transfer ]
Reusing excess heat is the most sustainable solution for water purification in green hydrogen production . Image © Alfa Laval
Establishing economical and scalable solutions
Until now , the industry has primarily focused on dissipating the heat generated during hydrogen production , for example through methods like sea cooling or ventilation . However , to increase the overall efficiency of the process , the waste heat must be recovered and used . The most obvious use is in other internal processes or in district heating . Sector coupling can also be considered . As shown , there is also the possibility of integrating the waste heat directly back into the process itself through the recovery of clean water .
The key now is to establish the required technologies in the market and scale them up for larger capacities . Innovative heat transfer technologies are critical to making hydrogen processes energy efficient and competitive - across the entire green hydrogen value chain .
Collaborative projects and partnerships aimed at finding new solutions and business models
will be key drivers in enabling high-performance hydrogen solutions for a decarbonized future .
References
1
IEA . ( 2021 ). World Energy Outlook 2019 .
2
Hydrogen Council & McKinsey & Company . ( November 2021 ). Hydrogen for Net-Zero . A critical cost-competitive energy vector .
About the author
Sven Schreiber has been the Managing Director of Alfa Laval Mid Europe GmbH , the Alfa Laval subsidiary responsible for Germany , Austria and Switzerland , since 2019 . The company is a global leader in key technologies for heat transfer , separation , and fluid handling . Since January 2023 , he has also served as a board member of the Power-to-X for Applications working group at the German Engineering Federation ( VDMA ), with the aim of accelerating the transformation process to achieve climate protection targets .
Hydrogen Tech World | Issue 11 | August 2023 17