The world will enter the hydrogen economy

Ningbo Fangli Technology Co., Ltd. is a mechanical equipment manufacturer with nearly 30 years’ experiences of plastic pipe extrusion equipment, new environmental protection and new materials equipment. Since its establishment Fangli has been developed based on user’s demands. Through continuous improvement, independent R&D on the core technology and digestion & absorption of advanced technology and other means, we have developed PVC pipe extrusion line, PP-R pipe extrusion line, PE water supply / gas pipe extrusion line, which was recommended by the Chinese Ministry of Construction to replace imported products. We have gained the title of “First-class Brand in Zhejiang Province”.

Why is more and more attention paid to hydrogen transportation with plastic pipes? This is because the world is exploring the development of "hydrogen economy" as part of the global development of "low-carbon economy". Renewable and pollution-free hydrogen is used to replace non renewable and polluting fossil fuels, so as to ensure the sustainable development of human society. When you open the Internet, you will see a large amount of global information reporting and discussing the new era that the world will enter - the era of hydrogen economy. For example, in October 2019, there was an article "10 countries moving towards green hydrogen economy", introducing the progress of developing hydrogen economy in "China, the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Canada, Australia, South Korea and Norway".

The first hot spot of hydrogen energy is applied to vehicles and ferries. The reason is that most of the vehicles and ships that consume a lot of energy in the world currently use fuel oil internal combustion engines. Its prominent disadvantage is to produce pollutants harmful to the environment such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrocarbons, lead compounds and dust particles, while the waste gas after hydrogen combustion is water vapor. There are many ways to use hydrogen as vehicle energy. At present, the best scheme is hydrogen fuel cell, which directly combines hydrogen and oxygen to generate the current of driving motor (there is a proposal on "suggesting the state to focus on the development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles" at the 13th CPPCC National Committee) at present, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles that have entered the Chinese market, such as [Toyota FCEV] developed by Toyota of Japan. In recent years, China has also strongly supported the development of electric vehicles, that is, converting and storing the electric energy from the power grid into the battery in the vehicle, and relying on the electric energy output from the battery to drive the motor. However, practice has proved that electric vehicles also have obvious disadvantages. Because the energy storage capacity of batteries is limited, the driving range of vehicles is affected. Moreover, the battery has long charging time and short service life. It is said that the sales of electric vehicles are not very good. Therefore, new vehicles using hydrogen energy and hydrogen fuel cells may be more promising to become the mainstream of vehicles in the future.

Another reason for promoting the development of hydrogen energy is that the world is investing heavily in renewable energy, such as hydropower, solar energy, wind energy, tidal energy. Unlike coal, oil and other resources, these energy sources will never die out. China has also invested in the construction of large-scale solar farms and wind farms in recent years. However, it is said that the investment benefit is often not ideal, because the characteristics of these power generation settings are that the power generation capacity changes greatly with time and climate, and the power generation can not be used for a long time and can not be generated for a long time. The problem is that electric energy is difficult to store. No matter what kind of battery, it is impossible to store a large amount of electric energy. Therefore, more and more people realize that the way to further increase the use of renewable energy is to combine the advantages of easy storage of hydrogen energy. When solar energy and wind energy generate too much power, hydrogen and oxygen are produced through an electrolytic water device, because hydrogen and oxygen can be compressed and easy to store (like natural gas). When the power demand is large, hydrogen and oxygen are used in reverse to generate electricity. The combination of renewable energy and hydrogen energy will greatly reduce the cost. In addition, it is reported that it is possible to use bioengineering to produce hydrogen in the future.