Innovative Passive Protection Systems For Hydrogen Production Plants

As a part of a broader project on hydrogen production by reforming of methane in a membrane catalytic reactor, this paper outlines the research activity performed at the University of Pisa, Department of Chemical Engineering, aimed at developing and testing composite panels that can operate as thermal protective shields against hydrogen jet fires. The shield design criterion that appears to give a more practical and convenient solution for the type of installation to be protected, is the one that suggest to realize composite panels. Composite material are made of two elements, fiber and matrix. In this study, composite panels will be realized with basalt fabric as fiber and epoxy-phenolic resins as matrix. Therefore, following the indications given by norms as UNI 9174 and ASTM E 1321-93, a test method has been studied to obtain temperature data from a specimen impinged by an hydrogen flame. Thanks to thermocouples applied on backside of the sample and an infrared video camera to realize thermal images of specimen surface impinged by flame, this type of test try to characterize the behaviour of composite materials under the action of hydrogen flame, simulating, in a simple way, the action of hydrogen jet fires.