Life Cycle Assessment of Hydrogen Production by Natural Gas Reforming in Brazil

Abstract

The focus of this paper is on the life cycle assessment (LCA) of hydrogen production, via natural gas reforming, in order to examine its potential environmental consequences. LCA is a systematic set of procedures for calculating the environmental impact of a product or service through all stages of its life cycle. The analysis has been carried out considering engineering data obtained from a hydrogen plant demonstration project in Brazil. The size of this plant was set at 1.15E04 kg/year. An inventory was provided for the manufacturing, transport, and installation phases, as well as hydrogen production and equipment maintenance. The cumulative energy demand to produce 120 MJ of hydrogen was estimated at 1.82 E02MJ and the greenhouse gas emissions were at 1.59 kg CO 2 eq. The following categories of impact were analyzed: acidification, global warming potential, eutrophication and ozone depletion. Results allow identifying the major potential impacts of the system components across the different categories and the data uncertainty associated with life cycle assessment impact characterization.