‘Groundbreaking’ hydrogen-compatible tube heating

Schwank believes it has set a groundbreaking milestone with the development of its first 100 per cent hydrogen-compatible tube heating system.

An R&D team in Cologne, Germany, led by Prof. Dr. Friedhelm Schlösser, equipped a Schwank tube heater with a completely new burner technology. Beforehand, the ignition and combustion behavior of hydrogen in closed, small-volume systems was computer simulated using complex calculation models. “As soon as the theoretical approaches were transferred to the practical environment of the laboratory, it quickly became clear what makes the use of 100 per cent hydrogen so difficult,” said Prof. Schlösser. “It is the unpredictable behaviour of the fuel itself. What was deemed functional on the computer was no good in practice. So, with a lot of intensive work and countless live test series, we have developed the first functioning tube heater virtually from scratch.”

Like Schlösser, many experts share the opinion that hydrogen is key to meeting the ambitious environmental goals of the coming years. As the energy carrier of the future, hydrogen could take advantage of storage and distribution via existing gas networks.