Investigation of a Possible Process for Hydrogen Odorization in Pure Hydrogen and in Natural Gas-Hydrogen Mixture Systems

One of the most important goals of this century is the exploitation of hydrogen as green energy carrier. Due to its storage and transportation problem, a concrete and immediate solution is the exploitation of the gas pipelines now used for natural gas. In this regard, safety is of paramount importance; indeed, like natural gas, hydrogen is an odourless and colourless flammable gas. To solve this problem a system of hydrogen odorization is to implement. This work is aimed at the investigation of a possible process for hydrogen odorization, focused on pure hydrogen and natural gas-hydrogen mixtures systems, to simulate a possible real gas pipeline. The odorization system considered in this work is called INGRID, developed by Regas Srl, a partner company for this project. Starting from INGRID’s specifications, a simulation model was then developed using AVEVA's PRO II software on the basis of the thermodynamic liquid-vapor equilibria of the mixture. As odorant, tetrahydrothiophene (THT) was taken into consideration, thanks to the fact that this is the most used odorant and so more experimental data are available in the literature. This system has proved to be effective in the odorization of both pure hydrogen and hydrogen-natural gas mixture.