Page 66: of Marine News Magazine (November 2022)

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Tech

File provide the hydrogen as it’s needed.”

Methanol to Hydrogen Generator “The process is robust in design with very few moving e1 Marine’s M-series methanol to hydrogen generator serves as a link allowing easy-to-handle methanol—a top parts, requires minimal maintenance and offers outstand- commodity globally, located in bunker quantities at more ing longevity.”

According to Schluter, here’s how it works: than 100 ports—to be converted into power-dense and

First, methanol (CH3OH) and water (H2O) are mixed clean hydrogen on board, in real time. It is a key piece of technology on board the Hydrogen One towboat being at a roughly a two-thirds/one-thirds composition to cre- built Intracoastal Iron Works for Maritime Partners and its ate the feedstock, which is pumped into a heat exchanger to cool the product hydrogen, preheat the feedstock and customer American Commercial Barge Line (ACBL). “In simpli? ed terms, we turn methanol to hydrogen as obtain optimal thermal ef? ciency for the generator. Then, needed,” said Robert Schluter, Managing Director at e1 the pre-heated feedstock ? ows into the reactor “hot box”,

Marine. “As the fuel cell, which is the engine in this case, where it is converted into a vapor before being directed needs hydrogen, we just operate the fuel delivery system to into a catalytic reactor to convert the feedstock into a syn- gas, a mixture of hydrogen, carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2), Schluter said.

Next, hydrogen is separated from the syngas using e1 Ma- rine’s membrane puri? er, the heart of the system. The small amount of remaining hydrogen-depleted gas from the puri- ? er is directed back to the reactor and combusted to gener- ate the heat for the steam reforming reaction. Exhaust from the raf? nate combustion is sent to the atmosphere, and the only new emissions produced by the hydrogen generator are e1 Marine Cavotec 66 | MN November 2022