Techno-economic assessment of large scale liquefied hydrogen production and shipping

Supervisors: Professor Mohamed Poukashanian, Dr Kevin Hughes

Global hydrogen production is over 55 million tonnes per year and the majority of this is produced and used within industrial sites as captive hydrogen or as industry feedstock. Nevertheless, there has been an increasing interest in expanding the utilisation of hydrogen in other sectors such as power generation, heating and transport as its combustion generates no pollutants. This trend, known as 'hydrogen economy', has triggered efforts to identify solutions that can produce low-cost, zero-carbon and large-scale hydrogen production.

There are two ways to produce green hydrogen, namely electrolysis powered by renewable energy and from fossil fuels coupled with carbon capture and storage (CCS) and in order to achieve a 'hydrogen economy' with large scale production and usage, it is necessary to massively develop new infrastructures to produce and transport hydrogen. A solution in this regard is to produce hydrogen in a large scale at locations with suitable techno-economic conditions and then liquefy and transport it to the end users.

To this end, the study will carry out rigorous techno-economic assessments of different hydrogen generation technologies, such as electrolysis, coal gasification and natural gas reforming to identify the potential of large scale hydrogen production and transport in different locations. This project will involve a substantial amount of process modelling and the development of the relevant modelling skills. In particular, the project will involve the development of commercial software, such as Aspen Plus/Hysys and Matlab and other related software.

For further information contact Professor Derek B Ingham (d.ingham@sheffield.ac.uk).