Production & Supply Chain

The gasification technology of refuse-derived fuels (RDF) can represent a future alternative to the global hydrogen production and a pathway for the development of the circular economy. The paper presents an innovative way of utilizing RDF through their oxygen/steam co-gasification with bituminous coal to hydrogen rich gas. Five different RDF samples (RDF1÷RDF5) were investigated. The in-depth analyses of the co-gasification of bituminous coal blends with different amounts of RDF (10 15 and 20%w/w) under various temperature conditions were conducted with the application of Hierarchical Clustering Analysis (HCA). The results of the research study revealed a decrease in the total gas yield as well as in the hydrogen yield observed with the increase in the RDF fraction in the fuel blend. The lowest hydrogen yield and the highest carbon conversion were noted for the co-gasification tests of coal blends with 20%w/w for all the studied RDFs. The SEM-EDS (Scanning Electron Microscopy with Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy) and WDXRF (Wavelength Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence) results showed a significantly higher H2 yield in RDF2 co-gasification with coal in comparison with all the remaining RDFs due to the higher concentration of calcium in the sample. The molecular structure analysis of polymers using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) demonstrated that the most prevalent synthetic polymers in RDF2 are polyethylene terephthalate and polyvinyl chloride characterized by the lowest thermal stability compared to polyethylene and polypropylene.

Catalytic decomposition of methane (CDM) is a novel technology for turquoise hydrogen production with solid carbon as the by-product instead of CO2. A computational fluid dynamics model was developed to simulate the CDM process in a 3D fixed bed reactor accounting for the impact of carbon deposition on catalytic activity. The model was validated with experimental data and demonstrated its capability to predict hydrogen concentration and catalyst deactivation time under varying operating temperatures and methane flow rates. The catalyst lifespan was characterized by the maximum carbon yield (i.e. gC/gcat) which is a crucial indicator for determining the cost of hydrogen generation. Parametric studies were performed to analyse the effect of inlet gas composition and operating pressure on CDM performance. Various CH4/H2 ratios were simulated to improve the methane conversion efficiency generating a higher amount of hydrogen while increasing the maximum carbon yield up to 49.5 gC/gcat. Additionally higher operating pressure resulted in higher methane decomposition rates which reflects the nature of the chemical kinetics.

Photocatalysts lead vitally to water purifications and decarbonise environment each by wastewater treatment and hydrogen (H2 ) production as a renewable energy source from waterphotolysis. This work deals with the photocatalytic degradation of ciprofloxacin (CIP) and H2 production by novel silver-nanoparticle (AgNPs) based ternary-nanocomposites of thiolated reducegraphene oxide graphitic carbon nitride (AgNPs-S-rGO2%@g-C3N4 ) material. Herein the optimised balanced ratio of thiolated reduce-graphene oxide in prepared ternary-nanocomposites played matchlessly to enhance activity by increasing the charge carriers’ movements via slowing down charge-recombination ratios. Reduced graphene oxide (rGO) >2 wt.% or < 10 nm. Therefore AgNPs-S-rGO2%@g-C3N4 has 3772.5 µmolg−1 h −1 H2 production which is 6.43-fold higher than g-C3N4 having cyclic stability of 96% even after four consecutive cycles. The proposed mechanism for AgNPs-S-rGO2%@g-C3N4 revealed that the photo-excited electrons in the conduction-band of g-C3N4 react with the adhered water moieties to generate H2 .

Biomass gasification is a versatile thermochemical process that can be used for direct energy applications and the production of advanced liquid and gaseous energy carriers. In the present work the results are presented concerning the H2 production at a high purity grade from biomass feedstocks via steam/oxygen gasification. The data demonstrating such a process chain were collected at an innovative gasification prototype plant coupled to a portable purification system (PPS). The overall integration was designed for gas conditioning and purification to hydrogen. By using almond shells as the biomass feedstock from a product gas with an average and stable composition of 40%-v H2 21%-v CO 35%-v CO2 2.5%-v CH4 the PPS unit provided a hydrogen stream with a final concentration of 99.99%-v and a gas yield of 66.4%.

Solar-to-hydrogen plants are predominantly based on steam electrolysis. Steam electrolysis requires water electricity and heat. The excess electric energy is generally converted into hydrogen via an electrolyser. The use of waste heat in hydrogen generation process promises energy efficiency improvement and production fluctuation reductions. This work investigates the techno-economic performance of the proposed system which recovers the waste heat from molten carbonate fuel cell and uses solar energy to produce steam. Comparison of thermally assisted solar system with corresponding solar system is done. The fuel cell provides 80% of the required thermal energy. The solar PV array provides the required electricity. The thermally assisted solar-to-hydrogen system annual energy efficiency (38.5 %) is higher than that of solar- to- hydrogen system. The investment cost of the proposed system is 2.4 % higher than that using only solar parabolic trough collector for the same required amount of heat. The advantage is that the fuel cell simultaneously produces electricity and heat. The recovery of waste heat allows getting an annual overall efficiency of 63.2 % for the molten carbonate fuel cell. It yields 2152 MWh of electricity per year. The 1 MW electrolysers annually generates 74 tonnes of hydrogen.

Ammonia is an industrial chemical and the basic building block for the fertilizer industry. Lately attention has shifted towards using ammonia as a carbon-free energy vector due to the ease of transportation and storage in liquid state at − 33 ◦C and atmospheric pressure. This study evaluates the prospects of blue and green ammonia as future energy carriers; specifically the gas switching reforming (GSR) concept for H2 and N2 co-production from natural gas with inherent CO2 capture (blue) and H2 generation through an optimized value chain of wind and solar power electrolysers cryogenic N2 supply and various options for energy storage (green). These longer term concepts are benchmarked against conventional technologies integrating CO2 capture: the Kellogg Braun & Root (KBR) Purifier process and the Linde Ammonia Concept (LAC). All modelled plants utilize the same ammonia synthesis loop for a consistent comparison. A cash flow analysis showed that the GSR concept achieved an attractive levelized cost of ammonia (LCOA) of 332.1 €/ton relative to 385.1–385.9 €/ton for the conventional plants at European energy prices (6.5 €/GJ natural gas and 60 €/MWh electricity). Optimal technology integration for green ammonia using technology costs representative of 2050 was considerably more expensive: 484.7–772.1 €/ton when varying the location from Saudi Arabia to Germany. Furthermore the LCOA of the GSR technology drops to 192.7 €/ton when benefitting from low Saudi Arabian energy costs (2 €/GJ natural gas and 40 €/MWh electricity). This cost difference between green and blue ammonia remained robust in sensitivity analyses where input energy cost (natural gas or wind/solar power) was the most influential parameter. Given its low production costs and the techno-economic feasibility of international ammonia trade advanced blue ammonia production from GSR offers an attractive pathway for natural gas exporting regions to contribute to global decarbonization.

Variable low-cost low-carbon electricity that would otherwise be curtailed may provide a substantial economic opportunity for entities that can flexibly adapt their electricity consumption. We used historical hourly weather data over the contiguous U.S. to model the characteristics of least-cost electricity systems dominated by variable renewable generation that powered firm and flexible electricity demands (loads). Scenarios evaluated included variable wind and solar power battery storage and dispatchable natural gas with carbon capture and storage with electrolytic hydrogen representing a prototypical flexible load. When flexible loads were small excess generation capacity was available during most hours allowing flexible loads to operate at high capacity factors. Expanding the flexible loads allowed the least-cost systems to more fully utilize the generation capacity built to supply firm loads and thus reduced the average cost of delivered electricity. The macro-scale energy model indicated that variable renewable electricity systems optimized to supply firm loads at current costs could supply 25% or more additional flexible load with minimal capacity expansion while resulting in reduced average electricity costs (10% or less capacity expansion and 10% to 20% reduction in costs in our modeled scenarios). These results indicate that adding flexible loads to electricity systems will likely allow more full utilization of generation assets across a wide range of system architectures thus providing new energy services with infrastructure that is already needed to supply firm electricity loads.

The European Hydrogen Strategy and the new « Fit for 55 » package indicate the urgent need for the alignment of policy with the European Green Deal and European Union (EU) climate law for the decarbonization of the energy system and the use of hydrogen towards 2030 and 2050. The increasing carbon prices in EU Emission Trading System (ETS) as well as the lack of dispatchable thermal power generation as part of the Coal exit are expected to enhance the role of Combined Heat and Power (CHP) in the future energy system. In the present work the use of renewable hydrogen for the decarbonization of CHP plants is investigated for various fossil fuel substitution ratios and the impact of the overall efficiency the reduction of direct emissions and the carbon footprint of heat and power generation are reported. The analysis provides insights on efficient and decarbonized cogeneration linking the power with the heat sector via renewable hydrogen production and use. The levelized cost of hydrogen production as well as the levelized cost of electricity in the power to hydrogen to combined heat and power system are analyzed for various natural gas substitution scenarios as well as current and future projections of EU ETS carbon prices.

Green hydrogen represents a promising solution for renewable energy application and carbon footprint reduc tion. However its production through renewable energy powered water electrolysis is hindered by significant cost arising from repair maintenance and economic losses due to unexpected downtimes. Although reliability engineering is highly effective in addressing such issues there is limited research on its application in the hydrogen field. To present the state-of-the-art research this study aims to explore the potential of reducing these events through reliability engineering a widely adopted approach in various industries. For this purpose it examines past accidents occurred in water electrolysis plants from the hydrogen incident and accident database (HIAD 2.1). Besides a literature review is performed to analyze the state-of-the-art application of reliability engineering techniques such as failure analysis reliability assessment and reliability-centered maintenance in the hydrogen sector and similar industries. The study highlights the contributions and potentials of reliability engineering for efficient and stable green hydrogen production while also discussing the gaps in applying this approach. The unique challenges posed by hydrogen’s physical properties and innovative technologies in water electrolysis plants necessitate advancement and specialized approaches for reliability engineering.

Methanol reforming is considered to be one of the most promising hydrogen production technologies for hydrogen fuel cells. It is expected to solve the problem of hydrogen storage and transportation because of its high hydrogen production rate low cost and good safety. However the strong nonlinearity and slow response of the pressure and temperature subsystems pose challenges to the tracking control of the methanol reforming hydrogen production system. In this paper two internal model-based temperature and pressure controllers are proposed in which the temperature is adjusted by controlling the air flow and the pressure is adjusted by controlling the opening of the backpressure valve. Firstly a lumped parameter model of the methanol reforming hydrogen production system is constructed using MATLAB/Simulink® (produced by MathWorks in Natick Massachusetts USA). In addition the transfer function model of the system is obtained by system identification at the equilibrium point and the internal model controller is further designed. The simulation results show that the control method achieves the robustness of the system and the temperature and pressure of the reforming reactor can quickly and accurately track the target value when the load changes. Small-load step tests indicate stable tracking of the temperature and pressure for the reforming reactor without steady-state errors. Under large-temperature step signal testing the response time for the reforming temperature is about 148 s while the large-pressure step signal test shows that the response time for the reforming pressure is about 8 s. Compared to the PID controller the internal model controller exhibits faster response zero steady-state error and no overshoot. The results show that the internal model control method has strong robustness and dynamic characteristics.

Anode flooding is one of the critical issues in developing a proton exchange membrane (PEM)-based electrochemical hydrogen pump. Improving the hydrophobicity of the gas diffusion layer (GDL) has been studied as an approach to mitigating anode flooding in electrochemical pumps. A mixture of Nafion™ and oxidized carbon nanotubes (O-CNT) has been applied to the porous gas diffusion medium in the hydrogen pump cell. The coating renders the GDL hydrophobic with an effective contact angle of 130°. Electrochemical pump testing has shown that with the help of the coating the flood-recovery performance of the hydrogen pump was greatly improved. A hydrogen pump cell with an uncoated GDL was not able to recover from a flooded state while a hydrogen pump cell with a coated GDL was able to recover its performance in about 100 s.

Oceanic energy sources notably offshore wind and wave power present a significant opportunity to generate green hydrogen through water electrolysis. This approach allows for offshore hydrogen production which can be efficiently transported through existing pipelines and stored in various forms offering a versatile solution to tackle the intermittency of renewable energy sources and potentially revolutionize the entire electrical grid infrastructure. This research focusses on assessing the technical and economic feasibility of this method in six strategic coastal regions in Morocco: Laayoune Agadir Essaouira Eljadida Casablanca and Larache. Our proposed system integrates offshore wind turbines oscillating water column wave energy converters and PEM electrolyzers to meet energy demands while aligning with global sustainability objectives. Significant electricity production estimates are observed across these regions ranging from 14 MW to 20 MW. Additionally encouraging annual estimates of hydrogen production varying between 20 and 40 tonnes for specific locations showcase the potential of this approach. The system’s performance demonstrates promising efficiency rates ranging from 13% to 18% while maintaining competitive production costs. These findings underscore the ability of oceanic energy-driven green hydrogen to diversify Morocco’s energy portfolio bolster water resilience and foster sustainable development. Ultimately this research lays the groundwork for comprehensive energy policies and substantial infrastructure investments positioning Morocco on a trajectory towards a decarbonized future powered by innovative and clean technologies.

Sustainable hydrogen production is key to achieving zero-emission targets and a hydrogen-based economy. Hydrogen production methods vary in terms of resource technology and system efficiency. This work analyzes the thermodynamics of fourteen hydrogen production pathways using Gibbs free energy minimization to examine the effects of pressure (1–60 bar) temperature (100–1000 ◦C) and feed composition using reactant conversion and product selectivity as key indicators of reaction performance. The impact of simultaneous reactions on hydrogen production is also discussed. From the results full conversion (100 %) independent of parameter variations at 1 bar pressure was observed for biomass gasification and steam reforming of glycerol methanol ethanol and bio-oil reactions. However H2 selectivity in all tested reactions except for NH3 dissociation and the splitting of water and H2S is greatly affected by side reactions. Finally the thermodynamic results of all reactions are compared and validated with published experiments followed by an evaluation of the challenges and opportunities in hydrogen production. The study provides optimal reaction parameters and a comprehensive comparison of H2 production processes aiding in designing and developing processes based on regional resource availability. Additionally it highlights the potential for both local and remote hydrogen production pathways from various renewable energy sources.

The electrocatalytic seawater splitting has become an important and necessary way for large-scale hydrogen production with challenges ahead. In this review a brief introduction to the reaction mechanism of seawater electrocatalytic process is first provided including the cathodic hydrogen evolution reaction and the anodic oxygen evolution reaction as well as the competitive chloride evolution reaction. Recent progress in transition metal phosphides-based catalysts for seawater electrolysis such as phosphorus doped transition metals binary metal phosphides and structural engineering are then evaluated and discussed. Finally the challenges and opportunities of transition metal phosphides are proposed and discussed.

Hydrogen produced using renewable energy from offshore wind provides a versatile method of energy storage and power-to-gas concepts. However few dedicated floating offshore electrolyser facilities currently exist and therefore conditions of the offshore environment on hydrogen production cost and efficiency remain uncertain. Therefore this review focuses on the conversion of electrical energy to hydrogen using water electrolysis located in offshore areas. The challenges associated with the remote locations fluctuating power and harsh conditions are highlighted and recommendations for future electrolysis system designs are suggested. The latest research in polymer electrolyte membrane alkaline and membraneless electrolysis are evaluated in order to understand their capital costs efficiency and current research status for achieving scaled manufacturing to the GW scale required in the next three decades. Operating fundamentals that govern the performance of each device are investigated and future recommendations of research specifically for the integration of water electrolysers with offshore wind turbines is presented.

The application of hydrogen energy produced by proton exchange membrane electrolyzer (PEMEC) is conducive to the solution of the greenhouse effect and the energy crisis. In order to understand the development trends and research hotspot of PEMEC in recent years a total of 1874 research articles related to this field from 2003 to 2023 were obtained from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoS CC) database. The visualization software VOSviewer is used for bibliometric analysis and the research progress hotspots and trends in the PEMEC field are summarized. It was found that in the past two decades literature in the PEMEC field has shown a trend of stable increase at first and then rapidly increasing. And it is in a stage of rapid growth after 2021.Renewable Energy previously published research articles related to PEMEC with the highest frequency of citations. There are a total of 6128 researchers in this field but core authors only account for 4.5% of the total. Although China entered this field later than the United States and Canada it has the largest number of research articles. The research results provide a comprehensive overview of various aspects in the PEMEC field which is beneficial for researchers to grasp the development hotspots of PEMEC.

Chemical looping dry reforming of methane (CLDRM) using perovskites as a catalyst is considered a promising option for producing hydrogen from biogas. In this work the life-cycle performance of a system compiling a CLDRM unit paired with a water gas shift unit a pressure swing adsorption unit and a combined cycle scheme to provide steam and electricity was assessed. The main data needed to reflect the behavior of the reforming reaction was obtained experimentally and implemented in an Aspen Plus® simulation. Inventory data was obtained through process simulation and used to assess the environmental performance of the process in terms of carbon footprint acidification freshwater eutrophication ozone depletion photochemical ozone formation and depletion of minerals and metals. Overall the environmental viability of the production of green hydrogen from biogas was found to be heavily dependent on the biogas leakage in anaerobic digestion plants. The CLDRM system was benchmarked against a conventional DRM implementation for the same feedstock. While the conventional DRM plant environmentally outperformed the perovskite-based CLDRM the latter might present advantages from an implementation point of view.

Water splitting is an effective strategy to produce renewable and sustainable hydrogen energy. Especially seawater splitting avoiding use of the limited freshwater resource is more intriguing. Nowadays electrocatalysts explored for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) using natural seawater or saline electrolyte have been increasingly reported. To better understand the current status and challenges of the electrocatalysts for HER and OER from seawater we comprehensively review the recent advances in electrocatalysts for seawater splitting. The fundamentals challenges and possible strategies for seawater splitting are firstly presented. Then the recently reported electrocatalysts that explored for HER and OER from seawater are summarized and discussed. Finally the perspectives in the development of high-efficient electrocatalysts for seawater splitting are also proposed.

The decarbonization of industry heating and transportation is a major challenge for many countries’ energy transition. Hydrogen is a direct low-carbon fuel alternative to natural gas offering a higher flexibility in the range of possible applications yet currently most hydrogen is produced using carbonintensive steam methane reforming due to cost considerations. Therefore this study explores the economics of a prominent low-carbon method of hydrogen production comparing the cost of hydrogen generation from offshore wind farms with and without grid electricity imports to conventional hydrogen production methods. A novel techno-economic model for offshore electrolysis production costs is presented which makes hydrogen production fully dispatchable leveraging geological salt-cavern storage. This model determines the lifetime costs aportioned across the system components as well as the Levelized Cost of Hydrogen (LCOH). Using the United Kingdom as a case study LCOH from offshore wind power is calculated to be €8.68 /kgH2 using alkaline electrolysis (AEL) €10.49 /kgH2 using proton exchange membrane electrolysis (PEMEL) and €10.88 /kgH2 with grid electricity to backup the offshore wind power. A stochastic Monte-Carlo model is used to asses the uncertainty on costs and identify the cost of capital electrolyser and wind farm capital costs and cost of electricity as the most important drivers of LCOH across the different scenarios. Reducing the capital cost to comparative levels observed on today’s wind farms alone could see AEL LCOH fall to €5.32 /kgH2 near competitive with conventional generation methods.

This study presents a comprehensive 4E (energy exergy economic and exergo-environmental) analysis of a solar-powered multi-generation system (MGS) that integrates parabolic trough collectors (PTCs) thermal energy storage (TES) an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) an absorption refrigeration cycle (ARC) a proton exchange membrane electrolyzer (PEME) and a reverse osmosis (RO) unit to simultaneously produce electricity cooling potable water and hydrogen. A complete thermodynamic model is developed in Engineering Equation Solver (EES) to evaluate the system from technical economic and environmental perspectives. Results indicate that the MGS can convert solar energy into multiple outputs with energy and exergy efficiencies of 12.2% and 4.3% respectively. The highest and lowest energy efficiencies are found in PEME (58.6%) and ORC (7.4%) while the highest and lowest exergy efficiencies are related to PEME (57.4%) and PTC (11.9%) respectively. Despite notable environmental impacts from the complex subsystems (particularly PTC and PEME) the system demonstrates strong economic performance with a net present value of approximately USD 8 million an internal rate of return of 30% and a payback period of 3.8 years. Sensitivity analysis shows that increasing solar radiation reduces the number of required PTCs and shortens payback time with less effect on energy and exergy efficiencies due to increased thermal and radiative losses.

Hydrogen has attracted growing research interest due to its exceptionally high energy per mass content and being a clean energy carrier unlike the widely used hydrocarbon fuels. With the possibility of long-term energy storage and re-electrification hydrogen promises to promote the effective utilization of renewable and sustainable energy resources. Clean hydrogen can be produced through a renewable-powered water electrolysis process. Although alkaline water electrolysis is currently the mature and commercially available electrolysis technology for hydrogen production it has several shortcomings that hinder its integration with intermittent and fluctuating renewable energy sources. The proton exchange membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE) technology has been developed to offer high voltage efficiencies at high current densities. Besides PEMWE cells are characterized by a fast system response to fluctuating renewable power enabling operations at broader partial power load ranges while consistently delivering high-purity hydrogen with low ohmic losses. Recently much effort has been devoted to improving the efficiency performance durability and economy of PEMWE cells. The research activities in this context include investigations of different cell component materials protective coatings and material characterizations as well as the synthesis and analysis of new electrocatalysts for enhanced electrochemical activity and stability with minimized use of noble metals. Further many modeling studies have been reported to analyze cell performance considering cell electrochemistry overvoltage and thermodynamics. Thus it is imperative to review and compile recent research studies covering multiple aspects of PEMWE cells in one literature to present advancements and limitations of this field. This article offers a comprehensive review of the state-of-the-art of PEMWE cells. It compiles recent research on each PEMWE cell component and discusses how the characteristics of these components affect the overall cell performance. In addition the electrochemical activity and stability of various catalyst materials are reviewed. Further the thermodynamics and electrochemistry of electrolytic water splitting are described and inherent cell overvoltage are elucidated. The available literature on PEMWE cell modeling aimed at analyzing the performance of PEMWE cells is compiled. Overall this article provides the advancements in cell components materials electrocatalysts and modeling research for PEMWE to promote the effective utilization of renewable but intermittent and fluctuating energy in the pursuit of a seamless transition to clean energy.

The global push for clean hydrogen production has identified nuclear energy particularly high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs) as a promising solution due to their ability to provide high-temperature heat. This study conducted a techno-economic analysis of hydrogen production in Saudi Arabia using the pebble bed modular reactor (HTRPM) focusing on two methods: high-temperature steam electrolysis (HTSE) and the sulfur– iodine (SI) thermochemical cycle. The Hydrogen Economic Evaluation Program (HEEP) was used to assess the economic viability of both methods considering key production factors such as the discount rate nuclear power plant (NPP) capital cost and hydrogen plant efficiency. The results show that the SI cycle achieves a lower levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH) at USD 1.22/kg H2 compared to HTSE at USD 1.47/kg H2 primarily due to higher thermal efficiency. Nonetheless HTSE offers simpler system integration. Sensitivity analysis reveals that variations in the discount rate and NPP capital costs significantly impact both production methods while hydrogen plant efficiency is crucial in determining overall economics. The findings contribute to the broader discourse on sustainable hydrogen production technologies by highlighting the potential of nuclear-driven methods to meet global decarbonization goals. The paper concludes that the HTR-PM offers a viable pathway for large-scale hydrogen production in Saudi Arabia aligning with the Vision 2030 objectives.

This paper reports on the experimental data analysis and numerical results carried out by algorithms in order to meet the provisions of Industry 4.0 in the field of research of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell/Electrolyzer. A performance mapping of the analyzed SOFC/SOE systems is developed in order to enhance system efficiency when it is fed by biofuels. The analyses concern the main operative parameters such as pressure temperature fuel compositions and other main system parameters such as fuel and oxidant utilization factors and the recirculation of anode exhaust stream gas.

Despite Iran’s considerable renewable energy (RE) potential and excellent wind capacity and high solar radiation levels these sources contribute only a small fraction of the country’s total energy production. This paper addresses the techno-economic viability of gray hydrogen production by these renewables with a particular focus on solar energy. Given the considerable potential of solar energy and the strategic location of Shahrekord it would be an optimal site for a hydrogen generation plant integrated with a solar field. HOMER Pro 3.18.3 software was utilized to model and optimize the levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH) of steam reforming using different hydrocarbons in various scenarios. The results of this study indicate that natural gas (NG) reforming represents the most cost-effective method of gray hydrogen production in this city with an LCOH of −0.423 USD/kg. Other hydrocarbons such as diesel gasoline propane methanol and ethanol have a price per kilogram of produced hydrogen as follows: USD −0.4 USD −0.293 USD 1.17 USD 1.48 and USD 2.15. In addition integrating RE sources into hydrogen production was found to be viable. Moreover by implementing RE technologies CO2 emissions can be significantly reduced and energy security can be achieved.

Methanol which can be derived from sustainable energy sources such as biomass solar power and wind power is widely considered an ideal hydrogen carrier for distributed and mobile hydrogen production. In this study a comprehensive comparison of the thermodynamic and techno-economic performance of the aqueous phase reforming (APR) and steam reforming (SR) of methanol was conducted using Aspen Plus and CAPCOST software to evaluate the commercial feasibility of the APR process. Thermodynamic analysis based on the Gibbs free energy minimization method reveals that while APR and SR have similar energy demands APR achieves higher energy efficiency by avoiding losses from evaporation and compression. APR typically operates at higher pressures and lower temperatures compared to SR suppressing CO formation and increasing hydrogen fraction but reducing methanol single-pass conversion. A techno-economic comparison of APR and SR for a distributed hydrogen production system with a 50 kg/h hydrogen output shows that although APR requires higher fixed operating costs and annual capital charges it benefits from lower variable operating costs. The minimum hydrogen selling price for APR was calculated to be 7.07 USD/kg compared to 7.20 USD/kg for SR. These results suggest that APR is a more economically viable alternative to SR for hydrogen production.