Investigation of solar energy utilization for production of hydrogen and sustainable chemical fertilizer: A case study

Abstract

Summary Renewable energies play a vital role in the economic and social development and progress of many countries. As one of the most significant sources of renewable energy, solar energy has been used due to its availability in many regions. Generating electricity for hydrogen production is one of the applications of solar energy. In petrochemical complexes, hydrogen is often used for producing fertilizers, especially urea fertilizers. The present study aims at investigating five major Iranian petrochemical complexes in terms of their suitability for the construction of a solar plant to produce electrolysis‐based green chemical fertilizers. To this end, a multicriteria decision‐making model is proposed, which includes the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and extended TODIM method of multicriteria decision making (including crisp, interval, and fuzzy numbers). The present research investigates 10 criteria for prioritizing petrochemical complexes, classified into four general categories, namely, climatic, geographic, environmental, and probability of natural disaster occurrence categories. Having calculated the weight of the criteria using the fuzzy AHP method, the alternatives are prioritized using the extended TODIM method. The methods of simple additive weighting (SAW), Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), and VIKOR were then used for validation of the results. Results showed that the Shiraz Petrochemical Complex has the highest priority and Khorasan Petrochemical Complex has the lowest priority for producing green fertilizer via solar energy–assisted water electrolysis. By using the solar system, Shiraz Petrochemical Complex can emit over 1900 tons less pollutants in the environment per day and provides up to 8% of its annual total production through clean energy.

Ranking Potential Renewable Energy Systems to Power On-Farm Fertilizer Production

“…The SAW method is one of the simplest and most commonly used methods for solving MCDM problems. In this method, the option is selected where the sum of its normalized weight values obtained for each option by multiplying the importance weight assigned for each sub-criterion to the option on each sub-criteria is greater than the other options [49,72]. The principle of the TOPSIS method is based on the notion that the selected option should have the shortest distance from the ideal positive solution and the maximum distance to the ideal negative solution.…”

“…The principle of the TOPSIS method is based on the notion that the selected option should have the shortest distance from the ideal positive solution and the maximum distance to the ideal negative solution. These two approaches have been used in various studies to select the best renewable energy resource, including Wu [49], Mostafaeipour [72], and Lee [51]. A full description of these two methods can be found in Streimikiene [46] and Mostafaeipour [72].…”

Robust bi‐level programming for renewable energy location

“…Moreover, solar farms have been developed recently using salt towers, which can generate a lot of electric energy. 2,3 Wind energy is one of the renewable energy resources that has been increasingly used in many countries since it has no environmental pollution and wind turbines are less expensive compared to the apparatus used for other types of sustainable energy. In this regard, it is vital to detect the optimal locations to establish equipment and installations to exploit the available potential.…”

Exploring the novel structure, transportable capacity and thermodynamic properties of TiH 2 hydrogen storage material

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] It is well known that the metal dihydrides are attractive hydrogen storage materials because of their renewable, low cost, excellent deformation resistance, etc. [9][10][11][12][13][14][15] Some noble metal hydrides have been investigated due to the good chemical stability and excellent catalytic activity. [16][17][18][19][20] For example, the Pt-Ru catalyst shows high hydrogen generation rate.…”

“…With the rapid growth of world energy requirement, a big challenge is to explore the light, safe, high energy density and environmental friendly energy sources for meeting the future energy market . It is well known that the metal dihydrides are attractive hydrogen storage materials because of their renewable, low cost, excellent deformation resistance, etc . Some noble metal hydrides have been investigated due to the good chemical stability and excellent catalytic activity .…”