PAIR Public Seminar: Turquoise Hydrogen – A possible solution for Renewable Energy Scarce Countries in Energy Transition Times

Biography

Dr CHAN Siew Hwa is a President’s Chair in Energy and a professor in Nanyang Technological University (NTU). He is a Fellow of Academy of Engineering, Singapore (SAEng) and a Fellow of ASEAN Academy of Engineering and Technology (AAET). He joined NTU in 1991 after obtaining his PhD and subsequently working as a post-doctoral researcher at Imperial College London. He leads the hydrogen and fuel cell research at Energy Research Institute @ NTU. Since 2017, he has been appointed as Senior Vice President of China-Singapore International Joint Research Institute in China-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City, focusing on incubation and commercialization of technologies. Dr Chan has been active in serving academic & research communities and industries such as Singapore’s covering focal point for the Sub-committee on Sustainable Energy Research (SCSER) under the ASEAN Committee on Science, Technology, and Innovation (COSTI), Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) Singapore’s Future Energy Technology (Hydrogen) Watch Group, A*Star’s Ammonia Handling Technical Advisory Group, Enterprise Singapore’s National Mirror Committee for IEC Market (Hydrogen) Strategy Board, National Research Foundation’s Next Generation Energy Systems, NUS’s Governing Board of Centre for Hydrogen Innovation, advisors to Total SA and Sydrogen Energy, etc. He is also active in commercialization of technologies including 12 technology licensing. Dr Chan was a Director of Maz Energy Pte Ltd (2004 – 2022) with core business in nitroparaffin-based fuel additives and founded Xin Xiang (Guangzhou) Hydrogen Technologies Co., Ltd., which is a tech-company manufacturing key components of PEMFC. He has published more than 320 refereed journal papers with total citations of more than 17K and h-index of 66. He was a recipient of NTU’s Teacher-of-the-year, Nanyang Award (Research Excellence), Nanyang Award (Innovation & Entrepreneurship), George-Stephenson Medal from IMechE, UK, Outstanding Scientific Achievement from International Association of Hydrogen Energy (IAHE), USA, Star of Innovation Talent award from Guangzhou government, World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds from Thomson-Reuters, etc. 

Abstract

Energy availability, affordability and sustainability have always been the key concerns in any energy transition plan of a nation, which align with World Energy Council’s outlook in Energy Trilemma, addressing the energy security, energy equity and environmental sustainability.  Hydrogen Economy is hence emerged strongly as a vision not only to decarbonize the global economy but offering energy security solution as hydrogen can be extracted from any hydrogen containing sources such as water. When hydrogen is oxidized to produce energy, it releases water as the sole by-product. Hydrogen Economy is not an easily understood concept, partly because of the perception on hydrogen safety, not to mention the challenges in implementing it at scale because it involves two separate supply chains, i.e., one on hydrogen, while the other on the energy conversion systems. Only when the two supply chains are met with affordable costs of hydrogen and energy conversion system, then hydrogen economy can fully take off. In a renewable energy disadvantaged country such as Singapore, the production of hydrogen using renewable energy is limited, while importing hydrogen from overseas is not cost effective presently. Currently, steam methane reforming (SMR) is one the most popular and cost-effective hydrogen production technologies globally.  However, the process emits significant amount of CO₂ that go against the carbon reduction intent. Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) is not always implementable in country such a Singapore due to its geographical constraint. The alternative is to split methane (or natural gas) into hydrogen and solid carbon, producing no or negligible CO₂. The splitting process is either by direct thermal decomposition of methane or by catalytic decomposition of methane, generally methane cracking or methane pyrolysis. The presentation will begin with Singapore’s long term energy plan and research focus, then a few major initiatives on hydrogen application, and finally the catalytic decomposition of methane for hydrogen production.