• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.9-15
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• 2024

Hydrogen-based electricity and transportation systems are widely recognized as sustainable power sources. However, the low ignition energy of hydrogen, only 1/10th that of conventional fossil fuels, poses a safety concern involving the risk of ignition due to electrostatic discharge from facility workers. Therefore, anti-static systems are imperative for hydrogen-based electricity facilities. To address this, we propose a reliable conductive rubber mat (CRM) to ensure the safety of these facilities. Unlike conventional anti-static floors that utilize conductive paint (CP), the CRM features a uniform distribution of conductive components in chemically and mechanically stable rubber. As a result, the CRM is unyielding to polar solvents (such as ethanol and hydrosulfuric acid) and non-polar solvents (like mineral oil) without increasing its resistance. Moreover, the CRM can withstand mechanical stress. Consequently, the human-body voltage of workers on the CRM would be sufficiently low enough to protect them from hydrogen explosions, thereby enhancing overall safety.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.27-34
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• 2024

In accordance with the clean hydrogen-centered hydrogen industry development plan, technology development and demonstration operation of water electrolysis devices are being actively carried out. Risk assessments are performed on newly developed hydrogen-using facilities and supplies to identify potential hazard factors. However, in general, most industrial accidents are caused by operator's human error or incorrect work practices. Additionally, the possibility of accidents occurring during operation control, maintenance, and inspection increases. For this reason, for equipment developed for demonstration operation, the correct work methods for the main jobs of operator must be reviewed and work procedures must be prepared. Accordingly, in this study, we conducted a job safety analysis (JSA) on major jobs in the operation of water electrolysis facilities to study safe work methods and necessary measures.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.59 no.2
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• pp.200-208
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• 2021

Compare to the gaseous hydrogen, liquid hydrogen has various advantages: easy to transport, high energy density, and low risk of explosion. However, the hydrogen liquefaction process is highly energy intensive because it requires lots of energy for refrigeration. On the other hand, the cold energy of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) is wasted during the regasification. It means there are opportunities to improve the energy efficiency of the hydrogen liquefaction process by recovering wasted LNG cold energy. In addition, hydrogen production by natural gas reforming is one of the most economical ways, thus LNG can be used as a raw material for hydrogen production. In this study, a novel hydrogen production and liquefaction process is proposed by using LNG as a raw material as well as a cold source. To develop this process, the hydrogen liquefaction process using hydrocarbon mixed refrigerant and the helium-neon refrigerant is selected as a base case design. The proposed design is developed by applying LNG as a cold source for the hydrogen precooling. The performance of the proposed process is analyzed in terms of energy consumption and exergy efficiency, and it is compared with the base case design. As the result, the proposed design shows 17.9% of energy reduction and 11.2% of exergy efficiency improvement compare to the base case design.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.385-393
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• 2022

Hydrogen has reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the main cause of global warming, and is emerging as an eco-friendly energy source for ships. Hydrogen is a substance with a lower flammability limit (LFL) of 4 to 75% and a high risk of explosion. To be used for ships, it must be sufficiently safe against leaks. In this study, we analyzed the effect of changes in the area of the air inlet / vent port on the ventilation performance when hydrogen leaks occur in the hydrogen tank storage room. The area of the air inlet / vent port is 1A = 740 mm × 740 mm, and the size and position can be easily changed on the surface of the storage chamber. Using ANSYS CFX ver 18.1, which is a CFD commercial software, the area of the air inlet / vent port was changed to 1A, 2A, 3A, and 5A, and the hydrogen mole fraction in the storage chamber when the area changed was analyzed. Consequently, the increase in the area of the air inlet port further reduced the concentration of the leaked hydrogen as compared with that of the vent port, and improved the ventilation performance of at least 2A or more from the single air inlet port. As the area of the air inlet port increased, hydrogen was uniformly stratified at the upper part of the storage chamber, but was out of the LFL range. However, simply increasing the area of the vent port inadequately affected the ventilation performance.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.78-84
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• 2023

Recently, the world's countries are tightening regulations on CO2 and air pollutants emission to solve them. In addition, eco friendly vehicles is increasing to replace automobiles in internal combustion engine. The government is supporting the expansion of hydrogen refueling infrastructure according to the hydrogen economy road map. In particular, refueling station is important to secure the safety that supplies high-pressure hydrogen with a wide LFL range. This paper is on guidelines for the determination safety distances to ensure worker safety from accident as jet fire. The safety distance is set according to the procedure of the EIGA doc 075/21. For accident frequency is upper 3.5E-05 per annum, safety distance is decided via consequence analysis where the risk of harm is below individual harm exposure threshold.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.248-255
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• 2016

The leaves of three plant species, such as soybean, raspberry, and kudzu, exposed to hydrogen fluoride was collected in an area surrounding an emission source where the release accident occurred. The ultrasonic-assisted extraction and analysis of fluoride by ion chromatography was carried out. The mean concentration of fluoride in the leaves of three plant species exposed to hydrogen fluoride was $5,409{\pm}1,198mg\;F/kg\;dry\;wt$ and $788{\pm}339mg\;F/kg\;dry\;wt$, respectively. The mean fluoride concentration in ambient air were estimated to be $2.36{\pm}0.65mg/m^3$ ($2.89{\pm}0.79ppm$) and $0.35{\pm}0.15mg/m^3$ ($0.43{\pm}0.19ppm$) in exposed and unexposed sites, respectively. It seems likely that the passive monitoring using plant leaves could identify with respect to plant risk by fluoride in atmosphere.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.914-922
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• 2019

Gas composition has a significant impact on the dispersion behavior and accumulation characteristics of blowout gas. However, few public studies has investigated the corresponding effect of gas composition. Therefore, this study firstly builds the FLACS-based numerical model about an offshore drilling platform. Then several scenarios by varying the composition of blowout gas are simulated while the scenario with the composition of "Deepwater Horizon" accident is regarded as the benchmark. Furthermore, the effects of the gas composition on the flammable cloud volume, the influenced area of flammable cloud, the influenced area of hydrogen sulfide and the critical time of the hydrogen sulfide spreading to the living area are analyzed. The results demonstrate that gas composition is a driving factor for dispersion characteristics of blowout gas. All the results can give support to reduce the risk of the similar accidents incurred by real blowouts.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.26-35
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• 2016

As a potential clean energy resource, the production and consumption of hydrogen gas are expected to gradually increase, so that hydrogen related studies are also increasing. The thermal and chemical properties of hydrogen result in its high flammability; in particular, there is a high risk if leaks occur within an enclosed space. In this study, we applied the computational fluid dynamics method to conduct a numerical study on the leakage behavior of hydrogen gas and compared these numerical study results with an experimental study. The leakage hole diameter was selected as an important parameter and the hydrogen gas dispersion behavior in an enclosed space was investigated through various analytical methods. Moreover, the flammable regions were investigated as a function of the leakage time and leakage hole size. We found that the growth rate of the flammable region increases rapidly with increasing leakage hole size. We also investigated the relation between the mass flow rate and the critical time when the hydrogen gas reaches the ceiling. The analysis of the monitoring points showed that the hydrogen gas dispersion behavior is isotropic and independent of the geometry. We found that the concentration of gas in an enclosed space is affected by both the leakage flow rate and amount of gas accumulated in the enclosure.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.881-892
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• 2016

Following the Fukushima accident and its extended station blackout, attention was brought to the importance of the spent fuel pools' (SFPs) behavior in case of a prolonged loss of the cooling system. Since then, many analytical works have been performed to estimate the timing of hypothetical fuel uncovery for various SFP types. Experimentally, however, little was done to investigate issues related to the formation of a flammable gas mixture, distribution, and stratification in the SFP building itself and to some extent assess the capability for the code to correctly predict it. This paper presents the main outcomes of the Experiments on Spent Fuel Pool (ESFP) project carried out under the auspices of Swissnuclear (Framework 2012-2013) in the PANDA facility at the Paul Scherrer Institut in Switzerland. It consists of an experimental investigation focused on hydrogen concentration build-up into a SFP building during a predefined scaled scenario for different venting positions. Tests follow a two-phase scenario. Initially steam is released to mimic the boiling of the pool followed by a helium/steam mixture release to simulate the deterioration of the oxidizing spent fuel. Results shows that while the SFP building would mainly be inerted by the presence of a high concentration of steam, the volume located below the level of the pool in adjacent rooms would maintain a high air content. The interface of the two-gas mixture presents the highest risk of flammability. Additionally, it was observed that the gas mixture could become stagnant leading locally to high hydrogen concentration while steam condenses. Overall, the experiments provide relevant information for the potentially hazardous gas distribution formed in the SFP building and hints on accident management and on eventual retrofitting measures to be implemented in the SFP building.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.1-8
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• 2011

In this research, the safety trends and technologies of HCNG, a mixture of hydrogen and natural gas, are analyzed. This is an attracting alternative fuels to meet the strengthened automotive exhaust gas emission standards. HCNG is very important opportunities and challenges in that it is available the existing CNG infrastructures, meets the strengthened emission standards, and the technical, social bridge of the coming era of hydrogen. It is essential for the commercialization of HCNG that hydrogen - compressed natural gas blended fuel for use in preparation of various safety considerations included accidents scenario, safety distance, hydrogen attack, ignition sources and fire detectors are examined. Risk assessments also are suggested as one of permission procedure for HCNG filling station.