Comparative feasibility studies of H-2 supply scenarios for methanol as a carbon-neutral H-2 carrier at various scales and distances

Abstract

Hydrogen (H-2) energy has come to the fore as a significant role of chemical industry in achieving a sustainable energy sector under serious environmental problems. Therefore, research for using H-2 as an energy carrier has been actively conducted. However, H-2 has very low volumetric energy density making it require conversion to other forms to acquire higher volumetric energy density. In this paper, the promising compound methanol (MeOH) was considered as a H-2 carrier owing to carbon-neutral in environmental terms. The two main overall H-2 supply scenarios were considered. The first case covers the use of MeOH produced from various types of H-2 (from steam methane reforming (SMR), coal gasification (CG), and water electrolysis (WE)), indirectly, and CO2 electrolysis, directly, as a H-2 carrier, further converted to H-2 at desired locations. The second case covers the conversion of MeOH from four production pathways into H-2 followed by the transportation of the produced H-2 via various H-2 transportation methods such as compressed H-2 (CH2), liquefied H-2 (LH2), liquid organic hydrogen carrier (LOHC), and ammonia (NH3). In this work, diverse H-2 supply scenarios considering various MeOH production methods, capacities, pathways, and distances were analyzed with unit H-2 supply cost via economic analysis. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.