Hydrogen Fuel & Safety - is it safer Methane?
Mike Marrington
The Practical Solutions Provider. | Hydrogen | Ships & Offshore | Petrochem | O&G | Mining | Owner's Engineering, Auditor, Trainer, Leadership | Asset Reliability & Integrity, Quality | IECEx, ATEX, EEHA, HazLoc |
As we see the mass adoption of Low Carbon Fuel Sources, fuel alternatives such as Hydrogen have become attractive to industry, yet fundamental lessons learned from use of Natural Gas fuel appear to have not been applied.
Simple Questions:
Question:
Why do Natural Gas and PLG (Propane) have an "rotten egg" odor?
Answer:
Like methane, neither propane nor butane has an odor of its own. However, gas producers add the agent ethyl mercaptan?to the gas mixture for safety purposes. This provides a recognizable scent, which will be familiar to anyone who has ever used a gas cylinder BBQ.
This scent is added so a leaks can be detected in residential, commercial, and industrial facilities.
Why:
They gases are all naked to the eye, cannot be detected by the human eye. Without indication of a gas leak, the ignition of this gas is not a matter of "if", but when and how many causalities.
First Odorized Gas:
The first?odorization? (i.e., adding an?odorant ?to gas so that it is detectable by smell) occurred in Germany during the 1880s. In that situation, Von Quaglio added ethyl mercaptan to?water gas?to intentionally reproduce the gassy odor associated with town gas to make it detectable.
Tragically, however, the New London, Texas disaster was the impetus to widespread odorization.
领英推荐
New London, Texas - School Explosion
The odorless and undetectable natural gas leaked from the residue line’s connection and made its way into the crawlspace, which ran the school’s length. The gas built up until there was a spark, igniting the gas. The explosion left behind a collapsed building, and there were as many as 295 deaths.
Such lessons are well documented by the CSB and other government & industry experts:
"Deadly Practices"
Blowdowns / Pressure Testing / Purging with the fuel gas
"Ban Natural Gas Blows"
Hydrogen to the Home
Aramco, Amazon, Qatar Energy, SNC Lavalin, ADNOC, SABIC, Engro: Experienced process safety HSE professional, Oil and gas, refinery, petrochemical and Hydrogen, Liquid Hydrogen
2 年Even water is not safe, it’s how you deal with it, green hydrogen is the future of clean energy and soon you will see lots of regulations and standards being build around as this will become common like methane
The value of an odourant is predicated on leaks being detected by smell before ignition, with enough time for a human to escape and isolate. This is less true for hydrogen, where an indoor leak will immediately gather at high concentration on your ceiling, rather than spread like a methane leak.
SDVOSB at 21 Bravo Mobile Pressure Washing | TDA C03 Commercial Pesticide Applicator/TDA Limited Herbicide Applicator | ARMY Combat Engineer/Cav Scout Veteran
2 年Mike, thanks for sharing!? God speed and much success.
Technology Intelligence and Visioneer/ Energy Systems Thinker with Expertise in De-carbonized Energy Systems/ Geologist/ Futurist/ Communicator/ Energy Futures Lab Fellow/ CESAR Associate/ Artist of Possibility
2 年Methinks a combo of methane/bio-methane/LNG as a Hydrogen carrier for transportation + destination Autothetnal Reformers (ATR) + near 100% Carbon Capture and useful solid carbon utilization is the future of Hydrogen. It is coming. It opens the way to Global Carbon Economy 4.0.
Working in training to improve standards in FE and HE.
2 年Flash point for Methane is -188 deg Cel. Flash point for Hydrogen is + 20 Kelvin. (-253 DegCel) Flammability range for Methane is 4.4 to 1.7% in air That for Hydrogen is 4 to 75% in air. Picked these up on a quick search. The differences are stark.