Staying in the loop

any countries are banking on hydrogen to be an alternative clean energy source to fossil fuels as we transition to net-zero. Last year, the UK published its net-zero strategy, a 400-page document detailing the future of carbon emissions in the country. The strategy sets out ambitious goals, such as the UK being completely powered by clean electricity by 2035. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and Ofgem aim to introduce 40 GW of offshore wind power, and boost investment in wind, but there are fears this will not happen fast enough to meet the country’s goals.

This is where hydrogen comes in; when published, the strategy aimed to deliver 5 GW of hydrogen production by 2030, whilst halving emissions from oil and gas. It emphasised the need to “manage the transition in a way that protects jobs and investment, uses existing infrastructure, maintains security of supply, and minimises environmental impacts”. In July of this year, the strategy was updated and the UK has set the new goal of achieving 10 GW of low carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030, double the previous target unveiled under its national Hydrogen Strategy in August 2021.

But there are challenges with making hydrogen a viable energy source – such as corrosion, flammability, transportation, and cost – which all need to be addressed to ensure we can meet this target. In 2019, the University of Southern California interviewed Paul Ronney, a USC Viterbi School of Engineering Professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering who studies combustion and propulsion, who said hydrogen faces barriers in becoming a reliable renewable energy. Ronney explained that one of the issues with hydrogen is that there’s virtually no pure hydrogen on Earth because it’s so reactive. Most hydrogen is made from methane in a process that produces carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which ultimately causes further harm to the environment.

The pressure problem The storage of hydrogen also poses a challenge, as it requires highpressure tanks or in more complex settings – like fuelling vehicles, hydrogen requires fuel cells which end up being very costly as they use expensive materials such as platinum. In pipelines, which are integral to transporting hydrogen, ‘embrittlement’ can weaken metal or polyethylene pipes and increase leakage risks, particularly in high-pressure pipes, according to a 2013 study from the US Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

These concerns have been echoed by the UK’s National Grid. “Hydrogen can attack the metal structure under certain circumstances, certain pressures, certain concentrations,” the National Grid’s Anthony Green said. “That’s an area the material’s scientists are trying to tackle” as part of the UK’s hydrogen research.

Hydrogen National Grid is currently testing how to best transport hydrogen through existing gas pipelines. Its FutureGrid programme, for example, aims to show how the UK could re-purpose our gas network to safely and effectively transport hydrogen across the country.

Transporting, storing, and delivering hydrogen is also expensive. Because hydrogen contains less energy per unit volume than all other fuels, it takes more money to get it from A to B on a per gasoline gallon equivalent basis. Building a new hydrogen pipeline network therefore involves high initial capital costs as hydrogen’s properties present unique challenges to pipeline materials and compressor design.

Nuclear projects Other renewable infrastructure programmes face similar expensive challenges. With renewable energy from nuclear plants being too costly, too slow, and too dangerous. According to the World Nuclear Industry Status Report nuclear energy costs between US$112 and US$189/MWh to produce, whilst generating solar power ranges from US$36 to US$44/MWh. Before leaving his post, Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged £700 million for a new nuclear power plant on the Suffolk coast; the project, which is being developed by French energy company EDF, is estimated to cost about £20 billion overall.

This massively costly project would not even begin to produce electricity until the 2030s. The 2021 World Nuclear Industry Status Report estimates that since 2009, the average construction time for reactors worldwide was just under 10 years, which in of itself is a long and complex process that releases a lot of CO2.

Graphene However, with Levidian graphene we could improve our existing infrastructure to accelerate the transition from natural gas to hydrogen. Levidian’s LOOP decarbonisation device uses plasma technology to crack methane into its component atoms – carbon and hydrogen. These carbon atoms are then locked away in the form of high-quality graphene. Graphene’s unique characteristics, when added to coatings, can help us prepare and strengthen our existing pipelines for more hydrogen.

To address some of the challenges presented by transporting and storing hydrogen, National Grid could reinforce parts of the gas pipe network by using just a small amount of graphene as a corrosion-resistant and waterrepellent internal coating – making it more able to carry increased quantities of hydrogen and less likely to crack. This would allow existing gas pipelines to be repurposed, minimising disruption, and making the switch to hydrogen easier for consumers and businesses. LOOP can be deployed with ease to most sites that produce methane or use natural gas – from factories, to decommissioned oil and gas wells, to wastewater treatment facilities and landfill sites, Levidian can deliver pure hydrogen or a partially decarbonised hydrogen-methane blend, which could be game-changing for hard to decarbonise industries with complex process heating needs.

Levidian’s Chief Production Officer, Ian Hopkins explains “The LOOP systems we have developed are fully containerised, and use automated process equipment packages that split a continuous flow of methane into hydrogen and graphene. This could be used to feed into gas networks at distribution or transmission level, with the graphene being a useful byproduct for internal pipe coatings and a multitude of other applications. We can also deploy LOOP at the consumer end of the gas transportation network, and deliver whatever the required hydrogen mix needs to be to suit the incumbent combustion equipment.

This point of use application really helps the network because some of the volume implications of hydrogen as an energy carrier are alleviated. The network will need to transition quite slowly to suit the minimum level of consumer hydrogen readiness, but there may be customers that can act faster and do want hydrogen rich gas blends or even pure hydrogen today. These consumers can stay attached to natural gas networks and do the hydrogen recovery themselves with a LOOP system.

Utilising methane We are on a mission to enable natural gas to remain an essential part of the energy mix, while simultaneously preventing it from creating any CO2. Natural gas and other methane sources do not need to be regarded as a carbon contributing fuel if they are managed correctly.”

LOOP will not only help to bolster the transport of hydrogen in our network, but can actually help create it too. By cracking methane, Levidian produces clean hydrogen in the process. This can then be used immediately as a loweremissions hydrogen-methane blend, or separated and utilised as pure hydrogen. Recently, Levidian has announced two ground-breaking partnerships. The first is with Zero Carbon Ventures to slash half a million t of CO2 equivalent in the UAE using LOOP to turn waste methane into hydrogen. The second is a trial with the UK’s largest listed water company, United Utilities, to see how LOOP can be used to turn biogas from wastewater sources into hydrogen.

Conclusion Levidian’s LOOP can help deliver the clean energy transition by decarbonising existing energy sources, creating clean hydrogen, and enabling our existing network to carry it.

The LOOP system may also deliver a very compact solution for vehicle refuelling without the need for high quantities of high-pressure hydrogen shipping and storage. National Grid’s initiative to trial LOOP technology is only the beginning. The transition to hydrogen as a sustainable renewable energy source is now within our reach.