The “Nicola Giordano” Institute of Advanced Energy Technologies (ITAE) is one of the most relevant research institute located in Sicily, belonging to the National Research Council of Italy. ITAE develops and promotes innovative energy technologies able to combine the knowledge of electrochemical, catalytic and adsorption processes with the ability to design materials, components and energy systems. The ITAE “Test Center” (ITAE-TC) is a modern functional testing building of about 4000 m2, timely realized to carry out many of its applicative activities, such as the realization and testing of prototypes, being also a center for the promotion of innovation and energy technology transfer. In the ITAE-TC infrastructure find place the GREEN-H2 laboratories, which are aimed at supporting the European Hydrogen Strategy for the developing of a test environment to scale up renewable and low carbon hydrogen supply and requests for a climate-neutral economy. The GREEN-H2 laboratories provide stations and laboratories to test prototypes and systems for hydrogen technologies. In the field of the generation of hydrogen, the main research topics carried out in the GREEN-H2 laboratories regard: (A) water electrolysis, (B) catalytic de-hydrogenation of hydrocarbons and (C) thermochemical conversion of biomasses.
A) H2 production by electrolysis at low temperature. PEM test station for single cells and short stacks are equipped with high-quality analytical tools and enable automated testing in the power range of up to 5 kW, with electrolysis voltages up to 12 V and maximum currents up to 100 A. Among other features, we can perform tests on high-pressure electrolyzers with pressure management capabilities up to 50 bar. It is also possible to operate at differential pressures. The main technical characteristics of the PEM test stations are:
- Precise water / electrolyte recirculation and anode temperature control
- Wide water temperature control range (40 °C to 90 °C)
- Optional cooling circuit for maximum power testing in the full temperature range
- Water conductivity measurement
- Hydrogen and oxygen production measurement
- DC source options:
- With EIS: BioLogic ±12 V / ±200 A;
- Frequency Range 1 mHz to 10 kHz
- Without biologic 5 kW @ 200 A;
- additional thermocouples;
- Feed Water Supply Pump up to 1 L/min
- Maximum pressure 50 bar
- Facilities for systemic experimental design.
- Electrolysers connected to wind turbines or photovoltaics systems. Systems for transport. Batteries.
B) H2 production through non-oxidative catalytic de-hydrogenation processes of hydrocarbons. Catalytic tests in the non-oxidative catalytic de-hydrogenation of hydrocarbons are carried out in several dedicated laboratory-scale, semi-automatized plants, able to operate in continuous mode, at high pressure (up to 50 bar), approaching real industrial operative conditions. Reactants are fed in the pipe-lines of the catalytic plants and heat controlled. The catalytic plants are equipped with reactor units made in AISI 316 stainless steel, type CSTR or PFR, having a net catalyst loading capacity ranging from 0.1g to 1.5 kg, able to perform the reaction tests in the range of 25-800°C of temperature and 1-100 bar of pressure. The catalytic reactions and the process conditions are monitored by PC. Reactants and products are on-line analyzed by chromatography and mass spectroscopy.
Aiming to achieve the challenge of a climate neutrality and to push the energy transition to a new paradigm, the laboratories of catalysis are continuously improved, also by equipping the laboratories with innovative testing facilities and/or customized catalytic plants properly scaled-up for testing and validation of both materials and processes in “real” industrial operative conditions. In particular, novel testing facilities are going to be realized for decarbonization processes through the use of green-hydrogen in the “hard-to-abate industries”, such as, for example, in the steelmaking through the direct reduction of iron ores with hydrogen.
C) H2 production through thermochemical conversion of biomasses. The test station can work with different feedstock up to 1-2 kg/h; depending on specific biomass characteristics. The plant system prevents hot gases from entering in the feeding hopper, which would ruin the experiment. Air, oxygen, steam or mixtures of them may be used as gasifying agents. It also offers the user a wide range of operational conditions: temperatures up to 850 °C, secondary air in the freeboard, residence time, etc. The gas cleaning system consists of two cyclones to separate solid particles, a filter to retain fine particles and a condensation train to condense tar and water, and bio-oil of pyrolysis. The whole system is built with 316 SS materials, while the reactor is 310 SS made. Besides, the thermochemical conversion plant includes both process and electronic control systems, which are supervised by PLC based control system. Other available equipment is:
- Hydrogen or syngas generators (Power until 50 Nm3/h of H2) based on reforming (SR, ATR, POX, etc.) of liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon and biofuels (biogas, ethyl alcohol).
- Biomass gasifiers and syngas purification lines. Cogeneration and trigeneration systems, adsorption heat pumps and hydrogen storage systems with max capacity 1.0 kg of H2.
Services offered by this infrastructure consist of:
Support for the development of components and devices for the production of hydrogen from renewable energy and sources, including the validation of testing procedures and measurement methodologies for the performance assessment;
- Study of electrolyser response when connect to renewable energy source (i.e. PV and wind turbine profile simulation);
- Tests under controlled climatic conditions;
- Hydrogen quality measurement;
- Validation of testing protocols, test procedures and measurement methods for the performance assessment;
- R&D-scale single cell testing up to kW-scale short stack testing;
- Test campaigns, carried out by qualified researchers with multi-decade experience in the field can be also performed.
Other technologies that can be tested at the ITAE-TC infrastructure regard the integrated grids, hydrogen and energy storage. Pioneering are in particularly the studies devoted to bioenergy production, such as the treatment of organic matter to produce biofuels and hydrogen and the exploitation of lipids from some micro-organism used in the phytoremediation of contaminated soils and waters. Of particular relevance are the activities regarding the chemical storage of hydrogen towards liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHC), through hydrogenation/dehydrogenation steps of unsaturated hydrocarbon molecules.
