Safety

Designing safety in from the start

Hydrogen and alternative fuels will only be used widely if the hazards are understood and controlled throughout design, operation and regulation. The Safety theme considers risks across production, storage, distribution and end use, including fire and explosion, toxicity, high pressure, cryogenic temperatures, leakage and materials degradation. By combining inherently safer design, hazard analysis, consequence modelling and mechanical integrity, the research helps projects reduce hazards early and build the evidence needed for standards, regulation and safe deployment.

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Building safety into new processes early

PC4.1 – Process safety evaluation of processes considered in PC2.3 and PT4.1

Project lead: Prof Joan Cordiner, University of Sheffield

Supports: Alternative Liquid Fuels; End Use; Environmental

This project is developing a process-safety toolkit that can be applied during the early design of new hydrogen and alternative-fuel processes. It will help researchers identify hazards, compare design choices and introduce safer controls before technologies are fixed or scaled. The toolkit will be tested through case studies linked to ammonia synthesis and the use of hydrogen or alternative fuels in cement production.

What this helps us decide: How early design choices can eliminate or reduce hazards before scale-up, rather than relying only on later controls.

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Making high-pressure, high-purity hydrogen safer

PC4.2 – Process safety evaluation of purification processes for high-pressure and high-purity hydrogen

Project lead: Prof Joan Cordiner, University of Sheffield

Supports: Storage and Distribution; End Use; Economic

This project examines the safety implications of improved hydrogen compression and purification technologies, particularly for mobile applications requiring very high pressure and purity. It applies the process-safety approach developed in PC4.1 to identify hazards, test controls and understand how technical improvements may introduce new risks. The findings will support safer design alongside the economic assessment of these technologies.

What this helps us decide: What hazards arise from high pressure, purity and mobile use, and how design controls affect both safety and value.

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Understanding what happens when hydrogen is released

PC4.3 – Modelling the consequences of hydrogen release

Project lead: Dr Alasdair Campbell, University of Sheffield

Supports: Production; Storage and Distribution; End Use

This project models the consequences of hydrogen releases in emerging applications. It considers scenarios including jet fires, flash fires, vapour-cloud explosions and boiling-liquid expanding-vapour explosions. By producing evidence about hazard distances and consequences, the research can inform safer design, emergency planning, regulatory frameworks and the wider process-safety toolkit.

What this helps us decide: How release scenarios develop, what consequences must be controlled and what evidence is needed for regulation and emergency planning.