Westra Iris M, Scheeren Hubertus A, Stroo Firmin T, van Heuven Steven M A C, Kers Bert A M, Peters Wouter, Meijer Harro A J
Centre for Isotope Research (CIO), Energy and Sustainability Research Institute Groningen (ESRIG), University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 6, Groningen, 9747 AG, The Netherlands.
Meteorology and Air Quality, Wageningen University and Research Center, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Sci Rep. 2024 Oct 15;14(1):24147. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-76373-2.
Projections towards 2050 of the global hydrogen (H) demand indicate an eight-fold increase in present-day hydrogen consumption. Leakage during production, transport, and consumption therefore presents a large potential for increases in the atmospheric hydrogen burden. Although not a greenhouse gas itself, hydrogen has important indirect climate effects, and the Global Warming Potential of H is estimated to be 12.8 times that of CO. Available technologies to detect hydrogen emissions have been targeted at risk mitigation of industrial facilities, while smaller climate-relevant emissions remain undetected. The latter requires measurement capacity at the parts-per-billion level (ppb). We developed and demonstrated an effective method to detect small hydrogen emissions from industrial installations that combines active AirCore sampling with ppb-precision analysis by gas chromatography. We applied our methodology at a chemical park in the province of Groningen, the Netherlands, where several hydrogen production and storage facilities are concentrated. From a car and an unmanned aerial vehicle, we detected and quantified for the first time small but persistent industrial emissions from leakage and purging across the hydrogen value chain, which include electrolysers, a hydrogen fuelling station, and chemical production plants. Our emission estimates indicate current loss rates up to 4.2% of the estimated production and storage in these facilities. This is sufficiently large to urgently flag the need for monitoring and verification of H emissions for the purpose of understanding our climate change trajectory in the 21st century.
对2050年全球氢气（H）需求的预测表明，当今氢气消费量将增长八倍。因此，生产、运输和消费过程中的泄漏给大气中的氢气负担增加带来了巨大的可能性。尽管氢气本身不是温室气体，但它具有重要的间接气候效应，据估计，氢气的全球变暖潜能值是二氧化碳的12.8倍。现有的检测氢气排放的技术一直针对工业设施的风险缓解，而与气候相关的较小排放量仍未被检测到。后者需要达到十亿分之一水平（ppb）的测量能力。我们开发并展示了一种有效的方法，用于检测工业装置中的少量氢气排放，该方法将主动式空气芯采样与气相色谱法的ppb级精度分析相结合。我们在荷兰格罗宁根省的一个化学园区应用了我们的方法，那里集中了几个氢气生产和储存设施。我们首次从汽车和无人机上检测并量化了氢气价值链中泄漏和吹扫产生的少量但持续的工业排放，这些排放源包括电解槽、加氢站和化工厂。我们的排放估计表明，目前这些设施的损失率高达估计产量和储存量的4.2%。这一数值足够大，足以迫切表明需要对氢气排放进行监测和核查，以便了解我们在21世纪的气候变化轨迹。
