About thirty researchers from nine branches of engineering at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) will study how to produce, compress, transport, and store hydrogen in a new research center inaugurated this Friday. The Hydrogen Laboratory, located on the Diagonal-Besòs Campus, will also be open to industries that need to carry out hydrogen-related tests to "overcome the desert crossing" that exists between developing an idea and its market launch. In fact, the laboratory already has orders from six energy and automotive companies. This "flagship" scientific infrastructure will use hydrogen and electricity generated in the same building, where a pilot production plant has been installed.
The laboratory has 12 test stations and an environmental chamber to test systems under extreme conditions, between 70 degrees and 20 below zero, with a maximum power of up to 100 kW. This chamber can be used, for example, to calculate at what temperature a fuel cell engine for electric or hybrid vehicles freezes and how many freezing cycles it can withstand, reports ACN.
And it is that research for the automotive industry will be one of the main axes in this center, where research will also be carried out to generate zero-emission fuel for aircraft and intelligent systems will be developed to burn hydrogen for the glass, cement, steel, and ceramic industries. Likewise, there will also be research to replace gray hydrogen, that is, manufactured with natural gas, in the production of ammonia or fertilizer.
The center has its own microgrid to optimize the consumption and production of hydrogen and electricity. Precisely, one of the challenges facing this energy vector is to reduce the water consumption needed for production – which is currently between 9 and 15 liters per kilogram – and to reduce the cost of manufacturing it, which is now 6 euros per kilo. The researchers' goal is to use regenerated or seawater instead of potable water and to lower the production price to about two euros per kilogram.
"Production must be efficient and right now green hydrogen is expensive compared to gray, generated with natural gas, which is worth one euro per kilo," said Lluís Soler, deputy director of the center. One of the attractive aspects for companies is that this "living laboratory" will constantly collect data that will help "verify that the green hydrogen installation is feasible in industrial plants," explained Lluís Soler.
The university claims that renewable hydrogen is "the ideal complement to electricity" to stop depending on fossil fuels. Especially for the decarbonization of industry and transport, which are the sectors that emit the most emissions into the atmosphere in Catalonia, particularly in the Barcelona demarcation, which exceeds by six those emitted in Lleida.
Boost for renewables
Jordi Llorca, vice-rector for research at the UPC, insisted that hydrogen is "an energy vector, not an energy source, and to produce it we need renewable energies." "Green hydrogen only makes sense if we install renewables, otherwise, we will not have the capacity to produce the hydrogen we need," he said, before reiterating that installations like this pilot plant are key to advancing towards the energy transition.
In total, the university has received 1.1 million euros in subsidies to carry out the plant. The project is part of the Specific Hydrogen Research Center (CER-H2) created two years ago by the university and which has obtained 5.08 million euros in funding for projects directly related to hydrogen in the last decade.