SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES HYDROGEN PROGRAM UTILITY SCALE PROJECTS QUARTERLY PROGRESS REPORT FOR OCTOBER 1 2010-DECEMBER 31 2010.
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The project was started in April 2005 with the objective to meet the DOE target of delivered hydrogen of <$1.50/gge, which was later revised by DOE to $2-$3/gge range for hydrogen to be competitive with gasoline as a fuel for vehicles. For small, on-site hydrogen plants being evaluated at the time for refueling stations (the 'forecourt'), it was determined that capital cost is the main contributor to the high cost of delivered hydrogen. The concept of this project was to reduce the cost by combining unit operations for the entire generation, purification, and compression system (refer to Figure 1). To accomplish this, the Fluid Bed Membrane Reactor (FBMR) developed by MRT was used. The FBMR has hydrogen selective, palladium-alloy membrane modules immersed in the reformer vessel, thereby directly producing high purity hydrogen in a single step. The continuous removal of pure hydrogen from the reformer pushes the equilibrium 'forward', thereby maximizing the productivity with an associated reduction in the cost of product hydrogen. Additional gains were envisaged by the integration of the novel Metal Hydride Hydrogen Compressor (MHC) developed by Ergenics, which compresses hydrogen from 0.5 bar (7 psia) to 350 bar (5,076 psia) or higher in a single unit using thermal energy. Excess energy from the reformer provides up to 25% of the power used for driving the hydride compressor so that system integration improved efficiency. Hydrogen from the membrane reformer is of very high, fuel cell vehicle (FCV) quality (purity over 99.99%), eliminating the need for a separate purification step. The hydride compressor maintains hydrogen purity because it does not have dynamic seals or lubricating oil. The project team set out to integrate the membrane reformer developed by MRT and the hydride compression system developed by Ergenics in a single package. This was expected to result in lower cost and higher efficiency compared to conventional hydrogen production technologies. The overall objective was to develop an integrated system to directly produce high pressure, high-purity hydrogen from a single unit, which can meet the DOE cost H2 cost target of $2 - $3/gge when mass produced. The project was divided into two phases with the following tasks and corresponding milestones, targets and decision points. Phase 1 - Task 1 - Verify feasibility of the concept, perform a detailed techno-economic analysis, and develop a test plan; and Task 2: Build and experimentally test a Proof of Concept (POC) integrated membrane reformer/metal hydride compressor system. Phase 2 - Task 3: Build an Advanced Prototype (AP) system with modifications based on POC learning and demonstrate at a commercial site; and Task 4: Complete final product design for mass manufacturing units capable of achieving DOE 2010 H2 cost and performance targets.
The presentation, 'NREL Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Technologies Program Overview,' was presented at the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Expo and Policy Forum, April 24, 2013, Washington, D.C.
The Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) is a U.S. Department of Energy research and development laboratory located at the Savannah River Site (SRS) near Aiken, South Carolina. SRNL has over 50 years of experience in developing and applying hydrogen technology, both through its national defense activities as well as through its recent activities with the DOE Hydrogen Programs. The hydrogen technical staff at SRNL comprises over 90 scientists, engineers and technologists. SRNL has ongoing R&D initiatives in a variety of hydrogen storage areas, including metal hydrides, complex hydrides, chemical hydrides and carbon nanotubes. SRNL has over 25 years of experience in metal hydrides and solid-state hydrogen storage research, development and demonstration. As part of its defense mission at SRS, SRNL developed, designed, demonstrated and provides ongoing technical support for the largest hydrogen processing facility in the world based on the integrated use of metal hydrides for hydrogen storage, separation, and compression. The SRNL has been active in teaming with academic and industrial partners to advance hydrogen technology. A primary focus of SRNL's R&D has been hydrogen storage using metal and complex hydrides. SRNL and its Hydrogen Technology Research Laboratory have been very successful in leveraging their defense infrastructure, capabilities and investments to help solve this country's energy problems. SRNL has participated in projects to convert public transit and utility vehicles for operation using hydrogen fuel. Two major projects include the H2Fuel Bus and an Industrial Fuel Cell Vehicle (IFCV) also known as the GATOR{trademark}. Both of these projects were funded by DOE and cost shared by industry. These are discussed further in Section 3.0, Demonstration Projects. In addition to metal hydrides technology, the SRNL Hydrogen group has done extensive R&D in other hydrogen technologies, including membrane filters for H2 separation, doped carbon nanotubes, storage vessel design and optimization, chemical hydrides, hydrogen compressors and hydrogen production using nuclear energy. Several of these are discussed further in Section 2, SRNL Hydrogen Research and Development.
The 2012 DOE Hydrogen Program and Vehicle Technologies Program Annual Merit Review and Peer Evaluation Meeting was held May 14-18, 2012 in Crystal City, Virginia. The review encompassed all of the work done by the Hydrogen Program and the Vehicle Technologies Program: a total of 309 individual activities were reviewed for Vehicle Technologies, by a total of 189 reviewers. A total of 1,473 individual review responses were received for the technical reviews.
Hydrogen sensors are recognized as a critical element in the safety design for any hydrogen system. In this role, sensors can perform several important functions including indication of unintended hydrogen releases, activation of mitigation strategies to preclude the development of dangerous situations, activation of alarm systems and communication to first responders, and to initiate system shutdown. The functionality of hydrogen sensors in this capacity is decoupled from the system being monitored, thereby providing an independent safety component that is not affected by the system itself. The importance of hydrogen sensors has been recognized by DOE and by the Fuel Cell Technologies Office's Safety and Codes Standards (SCS) program in particular, which has for several years supported hydrogen safety sensor research and development. The SCS hydrogen sensor programs are currently led by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The current SCS sensor program encompasses the full range of issues related to safety sensors, including development of advance sensor platforms with exemplary performance, development of sensor-related code and standards, outreach to stakeholders on the role sensors play in facilitating deployment, technology evaluation, and support on the proper selection and use of sensors.
Savannah River Remediation (SRR) currently manages the risk for retained hydrogen in the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) vessels by implementing a Retained Hydrogen Program. The current program conservatively relies on bounding assumptions concerning gas release and retention to develop allowable vessel Q-times. SRR would like to establish more realistic inputs to the Retained Hydrogen Program. To address this need, SRNL conducted a literature search on work investigating the retention and release of gas from DWPF type slurries. The search revealed that the retained hydrogen is not released instantaneously upon the start of agitation, and that hydrogen gas could be released under quiescent, non-agitated, conditions. The literature search also identified a Lattice-Boltzmann computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software that could model and predict hydrogen release from DWPF vessels. SRR requested that Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) personnel pursue this software and focus the model for hydrogen gas retention and release to justify relaxing these conservative assumptions. This report documents the refinement of the CFD software model and application to show its ability to describe retained hydrogen release from DWPF vessels and relax the conservativisms in the Retained Hydrogen Program.
1. Subcontractor/Technical Subject Matter Expert (Tasks 1-3) 2. Technical lead for LFG cleanup and hydrogen production systems Support for Feasibility Study 3. Technical Lead for Feasibility Study Coordination of site preparation activities for all project equipment 4. Host site
During Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) operation in the Slurry Receipt and Adjustment Tank (SRAT) and the Slurry Mix Evaporator (SME), hydrogen is primarily produced by radiolysis and catalytic generation. The hydrogen is released from the sludge by agitation and removed from the vapor space by purging with air. Upon loss of agitation, the hydrogen begins accumulating in the sludge, and releases rapidly upon the resumption of agitation. If enough hydrogen accumulated in the sludge, and released rapidly upon the start of agitation, the hydrogen concentration in the vapor space could exceed the lower flammability limit (4 vol %). Savannah River Remediation (SRR) currently manages the risk for retained hydrogen in the DWPF vessels by implementing a Retained Hydrogen Program. The program primarily relies on the timely operation of vessel agitators to ensure that the retained hydrogen eruptions that could lead to flammable vapor spaces do not occur. The current program relies on conservative assumptions concerning gas release and retention (e.g., instantaneous release, conservative hydrogen bubble fraction, no release during quiescent periods) to develop allowable vessel quiescent times (Q-times). SRR would like to relax the conservative assumptions to the Retained Hydrogen Program and allow the Retained Hydrogen Program to extend past Sludge Batch 9. Relaxing the assumptions could potentially allow longer Q-times during agitator stoppages. SRR requested Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) personnel to perform a literature study to extract industry data pertaining to retained hydrogen and apply it to the DWPF process. The authors conducted a review of the technical literature, including work from the Savannah River Site (SRS), SRNL, the Hanford site, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), and the Sellafield site to identify literature describing the retention and release of gases with non-Newtonian slurries. The study was undertaken with the knowledge that SRS wastes are unique which makes using non-SRS data challenging. The literature search focused on the following topics: Mixing or blend time in Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids, Quiescent release of gas from an unagitated non-Newtonian fluid, Release of gas from an agitated non-Newtonian fluid, and Changes in fluid rheology as a function of settling time.