Investigation of Methane-Hydrogen Mixtures in Vertical Pipelines

Abstract

The paper presents an assessment of issues regarding the separation phenomena of methane-hydrogen mixtures in vertical pipelines. In the first part of the paper, the explosion risk is underlined. Thus, the widespread use of methane in both the industrial and domestic sectors is well known. In practice, due to recent trends, the injection of hydrogen into dedicated methane installations, the differences in densities can lead to separation phenomena which have an unfavorable effect on the operating regimes of equipment using this mixture and also, on the risk of explosion. The use of hydrogen in the industry is not new, but the increasing impact in terms of the number of users may involve a higher number of accidents due to the increased field of probability of hazardous situations in terms of explosions. The second part presents the used methods. The diffusion and gravitational separation are presented as phenomena having opposite effects. The used methods are theoretical and simulation approaches. The theoretical model is based on a nondynamic model. Therefore, no time parameter was not involved in the model. A linear dependence with the height of the concentration variation was observed for the range of heights considered. The conducted simulation underlined the same conclusion regarding the magnitude of gravitational separations in the methane-hydrogen mixtures. The main conclusion of the approach is that the separation phenomenon effect due to the gas density differences is negligible. The approach also revealed, as expected that the higher level of pipe is exposed to a higher risk of increased hydrogen concentration.