H2 TECHNOLOGY
Baking with green hydrogen energy? “What is your position on the use of hydrogen technology to fuel ovens in bakeries?” This is the question we put to oven manufacturers in Europe and the USA. The WP Bakerygroup, Reading Bakery Systems and the Bühler Group came back with their statements. By Helga Baumfalk
Hydrogen (H 2) is basically a perfect fuel, since its combustion with oxygen (O2) generates no carbon dioxide (CO2), but only water (H 2O). Hydrogen can be obtained from methane (CH4), although that does produce CO2 again. Another method is the electrolysis of water (H2O). This involves passing a direct electric current through water Dr.-Ing. Christoph Adams between two electrodes immersed in the water. Two gases, hydrogen and oxygen, are evolved at the two electrodes – separated from one another – but no carbon dioxide. In conjunction with electricity generated from wind or the sun, this allows the ‘storage’ of a large amount of the electrical energy that is generated. So, when considering this energy chain – the generation of hydrogen from wind or solar energy, and the production of the energy needed in the baking oven from hydrogen – this really forms no CO2 in the entire process. However, using hydrogen is not entirely problem-free on safety grounds. There is a good reason why a mixture of two parts of hydrogen and one part of oxygen is called detonating gas: it is highly explosive!
www.bakingbiscuit.com 01/2022
An added factor is that although hydrogen burners already exist, they are available only for 600 kW and above, i.e. for rather large plants. Developments are also ongoing for burners up to 40 kW. Currently, in the baking ovens area, there are still no practicable solutions with burner powers in the range between 60 and 200 kW. As soon as these become available, everything really favors the use of hydrogen in the baking ovens area. The costs required for this remain to be seen. Dr.-Ing. Christoph Adams, Technical Director at W&P Lebensmitteltechnik GmbH (Werner & Pfleiderer), Dinkelsbühl, Germany
“Oven manufacturers will increasingly use electrically driven solutions”
© RBS
“Basically a perfect fuel, but not entirely problem-free”
© Wp Bakery Group
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Joe Zaleski
While a 30% hydrogen/natural gas mixture could be considered a bridge technology to a more sustainable green fuel in the future, burning pure hydrogen gas in ovens has the challenges of a more complicated combustion process and high-pressure on-site storage systems. The energy vector required to produce hydrogen, transport it to site, pipe
