Techno-economic and life cycle assessment for renewable green fuels

September 20th, 2024

R&D Focus Areas:
Techno-economic evaluation, Electrolysis, Synthetic fuels and chemicals

Lead Organisation:
Swinburne University of Technology

Partners:
CSIRO

Status:
Active

Start date:
September 2023

Completion date:
September 2026

Key contacts:
Gordon Chakaodza – Director, Victorian Hydrogen Hub: gchakaodza@swin.edu.au
Victorian Hydrogen Hub (VH2): vichydrogenhub@swin.edu.au
Feng Wang, Project Primary Supervisor: fwang@swin.edu.au
Md Nasir Uddin, Project Key Researcher: mdnasiruddin@swin.edu.au

Funding:
Victorian Government – Victorian Hydrogen Hub

Project total cost:
AUD$130,000

Project summary description:
Hydrogen is an energy carrier of the future. Hydrogen can be produced diversely, and most hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels, specifically natural gas. Electricity-from the grid or from renewable sources such as biomass, geothermal, solar, or wind-is also currently used to produce hydrogen. In the longer term, renewable energy such as solar energy and biomass can be used more directly to generate hydrogen as new technologies.

For hydrogen storage and transportation issues, liquid organic chemical carriers of hydrogen, such as methylcyclohexane (MCH), aromatics, hydro-dibenzyl toluene (DBT) and N-ethyl carbazole (NEC} have been considered as the most promising options. This proposed techno-economic analysis and comparison of different liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHC} is also of keen interest to both the energy export end such as Australia and the import end such as Asian countries.

This techno-economic analysis research project is performed by applying the cost balance equation on each component of the hydrogen energy system with CSIRO which has proven expertise in techno-economic analysis for the above-mentioned liquid carriers as well as the liquefaction of hydrogen.

This project aims at better understanding of the hydrogen energy technical process with a more quantitative model and up-to-date market information. This will allow us to provide more reliable and universal model and guidelines to future clients and hydrogen energy development and management.

Challenges and Future Perspective of Sustainable Aviation Fuel: A Mini Review.

https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4884170. Journal: FUEL (Revise) 2024. Publisher: Elsevier BV (Preprint).

Higher degree studies supported:
One PhD student at Swinburne University of Technology is supported by this project.

September 2024