(570h) Sustainability Analysis of Hydrogen Production Processes for Maritime Transportation.

Hydrogen is a flexible energy carrier and storage medium that can be used for a number of purposes. It might be created through a variety of pathways, each of which would result in a unique type of hydrogen denoted by a colour. In this work, process simulation is used to evaluate capital and maintenance costs, as well as to generate material and energy balances for each process under study. Process simulation outcomes are then used for to estimate three key performance indicators focusing on sustainability pillars: the Energy Return On Energy Invested (EROEI), the Levelized Cost Of Hydrogen (LCOH) and the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). We have designed the production to feed hydrogen to a ferryboat operating in the North Adriatic sea. We compared several hydrogen generation processes, each denoted by a unique colour code: (i) green hydrogen, produced by electrolysis of water using electricity from renewable sources, (ii) yellow hydrogen, produced by electrolysis using grid electricity, (iii) grey hydrogen, produced from natural gas using steam reforming and (iv) blue hydrogen, like grey one, but with carbon capture and storage (CCS). For green hydrogen it is assumed that the electricity is produced by a floating PV platform located near the utilizers of hydrogen. From the results obtained it is possible to conclude that the most sustainable hydrogen production methods is the so-called green hydrogen, produced by water electrolysis.