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Mechanical Technology — December 2015
⎪
Sustainable energy and energy management
⎪
A
ccording to Bessarabov, Hy-
drogen South Africa (HySA)
is a national special flagship
programme conceived some
seven years ago. “The overall goal is to
develop and guide innovation along the
value chain of hydrogen and fuel cell
technologies in South Africa, in support of
the beneficiation of South Africa’s mineral
wealth, with a specific focus on platinum
group metals (PGMs).
“South Africa has large deposits of
PGMs and is a key processor of the raw
materials containing these metals. About
70% of the platinium used in the world is
mined here, and the metal is used exten-
sively for catalytic converters in the global
automotive industry,” he says, adding
that, as well as for catalytic converters,
PGMs such as platinum and iridium are
used as catalysts in water electrolysers
and hydrogen fuel cells.
As a national programme, HySA is
hosted at a number of state-owned in-
stitutions around the country, which are
responsible for providing facilities and
equipment. “The HySA Infrastructure
centre of competence is hosted by two
organisations, the Potchefstroom campus
of NWU, and the CSIR in Pretoria. We are
responsible for development of systems
and components for hydrogen produc-
tion, storage and delivery,” Bessarabov
tells
MechTech
.
HySA Catalysis is co-hosted by the
University of Cape Town and Mintek
and takes responsibility for catalysts
such as those in fuel cells, reformers
and portable power systems, while HySA
Systems, hosted by the University of the
Western Cape, develops hydrogen fuel
cell systems and the associated systems’
integration. “Each centre is involved in
collaborative projects with each other, as
well as taking responsibility for specifical-
ly allocated technology areas,” he says.
“Here at NWU we focus on efficient
hydrogen production, which is strongly
linked to the development and use of
renewable energy: identifying new ways
to use hydrogen; and, along with our
colleagues from CSIR, developing storage
and transportation systems to distribute
hydrogen to where it is needed,” he notes.
Hydrogen infrastructure, electrolysers
MechTech
visits the research facilities of the DST National Hydrogen
Infrastructure Centre of Competence (HySA Infrastructure) at the Potchefstroom
campus of the North-West University (NWU) and talks to the centre’s director,
Dmitri Bessarabov (right).
Globally, some 60-million tons of
hydrogen are produced per year with the
petrochemical industries and ammonia
producers as key consumers. “Sasol,
for example, uses large quantities of
hydrogen that it produces by reforming
natural gas. But this comes with an
environmental penalty, because of the
amount of CO
2
emitted.
“Here at HySA infrastructure, we are
producing hydrogen from water using
renewable energy, with oxygen as the
only other by-product. We use neither
fossil fuels nor natural gas to produce our
hydrogen and we strive towards carbon
neutral hydrogen generation,” he assures.
At the starting point of HySA Infra
structure’s hydrogen generation plant is