Mijndert Willem van der Spek

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van der Spek

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Mijndert Willem

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0000-0002-3365-2289

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Publications1 - 10 of 10

Perspective on the hydrogen economy as a pathway to reach net-zero CO2 emissions in Europe
van der Spek, Mijndert Willem; Banet, Catherine; Bauer, Christian; et al. (2022)
Energy & Environmental Science
The envisioned role of hydrogen in the energy transition - or the concept of a hydrogen economy - has varied through the years. In the past hydrogen was mainly considered a clean fuel for cars and/or electricity production; but the current renewed interest stems from the versatility of hydrogen in aiding the transition to CO2 neutrality, where the capability to tackle emissions from distributed applications and complex industrial processes is of paramount importance. However, the hydrogen economy will not materialise without strong political support and robust infrastructure design. Hydrogen deployment needs to address multiple barriers at once, including technology development for hydrogen production and conversion, infrastructure co-creation, policy, market design and business model development. In light of these challenges, we have brought together a group of hydrogen researchers who study the multiple interconnected disciplines to offer a perspective on what is needed to deploy the hydrogen economy as part of the drive towards net-zero-CO2 societies. We do this by analysing (i) hydrogen end-use technologies and applications, (ii) hydrogen production methods, (iii) hydrogen transport and storage networks, (iv) legal and regulatory aspects, and (v) business models. For each of these, we provide key take home messages ranging from the current status to the outlook and needs for further research. Overall, we provide the reader with a thorough understanding of the elements in the hydrogen economy, state of play and gaps to be filled.
Direct Olivine Carbonation: Optimal Process Design for a Low-Emission and Cost-Efficient Cement Production
Bremen, Andreas M.; Strunge, Till; Ostovari, Hesam; et al. (2022)
Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research
Employing mineral carbonation products as a cementitious substitute could reduce the cement industry's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, a transition toward low-emission cement requires financially competitive cement production at standardized product specifications. Aiming to tackle this challenge, we modeled and optimized a direct mineral carbonation process. In detail, we embedded a mechanistic tubular reactor model in a mineral carbonation process and imposed product specifications based on the European cement standard in the optimal design formulation. In the next step, we considered the business case of blended cement consisting of ordinary Portland cement and the mineral carbonation product that could be categorized as CEM II in the European cement standard. We computed the minimum production cost and GHG emissions of the produced blended cement by using Bayesian optimization to find Pareto optimal operating conditions of the mineral carbonation process. Our results showed that the cost of mineral carbonation in the cement industry can be competitive while cutting the GHG emissions by up to 54%.
An ecosystem of carbon dioxide removal reviews – part 1: direct air CO₂ capture and storage
van der Spek, Mijndert Willem; Bardow, André; Baum, Chad M.; et al. (2025)
Energy & Environmental Science
Direct air CO2 capture and storage (DACCS) is a technology in an emerging portfolio for carbon dioxide removal (CDR), understood to play a critical role in stabilising our climate by offsetting residual carbon emissions and ensuring net-negative greenhouse gas emissions post reaching net-zero. Carbon dioxide removal is anticipated to gain further importance due to lacking progress on climate reduction efforts. Meanwhile, CDR, including DACCS, is transitioning from a merely scientific effort to implementation, requiring policy and decision making based on a comprehensive understanding of the scientific body of knowledge. This calls for a source of information synthesising the body of knowledge on CDR, which we set out to author and publish as a series of systematic review papers on CDR. This first review focuses on DACCS. Given the need for practical implementation, this review reports not only on DACCS technology and state of development, but also on the state-of-the-art in technoeconomic and environmental performance, policy, equity & justice, public perceptions, and monitoring, reporting, and verification, closing with the foreseen role for DACCS in future decarbonisation scenarios. The synthesis shows that direct air carbon capture and storage can only scale and overcome current challenges, such as its high cost, via targeted and long-term government support, including subsidies, similar to the support renewable energy received in past decades.
Best practices and recent advances in CCS cost engineering and economic analysis
van der Spek, Mijndert Willem; Roussanaly, Simon; Rubin, Edward S. (2019)
International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control
Analysis of direct capture of CO2 from ambient air via steam-assisted temperature-vacuum swing adsorption
Stampi-Bombelli, Valentina; van der Spek, Mijndert Willem; Mazzotti, Marco (2020)
Adsorption
In this work, direct air capture (DAC) via adsorption is studied through the design and analysis of two temperature-vacuum swing adsorption (TVSA) cycles. In the first part, a novel way of describing the adsorption of CO2 in presence of water vapor is proposed for co-adsorption kinetic and thermodynamic data gathered from the literature. Secondly, two TVSA cycle designs are proposed: one with a desorption step via external heating, and one with a steam purge. A schematic method for the determination of the cycle step times is proposed and a parametric study on the operating conditions is performed via cycle simulations using a detailed, first principles model. Finally, the two cycles are compared in terms of CO2 production and energy consumption. The parametric study on the desorption time shows that there is a desorption time yielding the highest CO2 production at low energy consumptions. Low evacuation pressures are necessary to reach high CO2 production, but higher evacuation pressures show to be always favorable in terms of specific electrical energy requirements. A steam purge requires an additional thermal energy cost, but it not only allows decreasing the specific electrical energy consumptions, it also enhances CO2 desorption kinetics and allows reaching higher CO2 productions at milder evacuation pressures. The results of this work present the possibility to directly relate the availability of power and heat to the design of the cycle.
Correction to: Analysis of direct capture of CO2 from ambient air via steam-assisted temperature–vacuum swing adsorption
Stampi-Bombelli, Valentina; van der Spek, Mijndert Willem; Mazzotti, Marco (2022)
Adsorption
On the climate impacts of blue hydrogen production
Bauer, Christian; Treyer, Karin; Antonini, Cristina; et al. (2021)
Sustainable Energy & Fuels
Natural gas based hydrogen production with carbon capture and storage is referred to as blue hydrogen. If substantial amounts of CO2 from natural gas reforming are captured and permanently stored, such hydrogen could be a low-carbon energy carrier. However, recent research raises questions about the effective climate impacts of blue hydrogen from a life cycle perspective. Our analysis sheds light on the relevant issues and provides a balanced perspective on the impacts on climate change associated with blue hydrogen. We show that such impacts may indeed vary over large ranges and depend on only a few key parameters: the methane emission rate of the natural gas supply chain, the CO2 removal rate at the hydrogen production plant, and the global warming metric applied. State-of-the-art reforming with high CO2 capture rates combined with natural gas supply featuring low methane emissions does indeed allow for substantial reduction of greenhouse gas emissions compared to both conventional natural gas reforming and direct combustion of natural gas. Under such conditions, blue hydrogen is compatible with low-carbon economies and exhibits climate change impacts at the upper end of the range of those caused by hydrogen production from renewable-based electricity. However, neither current blue nor green hydrogen production pathways render fully "net-zero" hydrogen without additional CO2 removal.
Synergistic material and process development: Application of a metal-organic framework, Cu-TDPAT, in single-cycle hydrogen purification and CO2 capture from synthesis gas
Asgari, Mehrdad; Streb, Anne; van der Spek, Mijndert Willem; et al. (2021)
Chemical Engineering Journal
We employ a synergistic material and process development strategy to improve the performance of a single-cycle vacuum pressure swing adsorption (VPSA) process for the hydrogen purification and the CO2 separation from reforming-based hydrogen synthesis. Based on process-informed adsorbent selection criteria, including high CO2 cyclic capacity and selective uptake of impurities like CO, N2, and CH4 over H2, a metal organic framework (MOF), Cu-TDPAT, is selected. First, adsorption isotherms of CO2, CO, CH4, N2 and H2 are measured. Subsequently, a column model is used for optimization-based analysis of the VPSA cycle with Cu-TDPAT as the adsorbent to assess both the separation performance, and the process performance in terms of energy consumption and productivity. The adsorption characteristics of Cu-TDPAT require an adaptation of the original VPSA process to increase the CO2 separation performance of the process. After this adaptation, Cu-TDPAT clearly outperforms the benchmark material, zeolite 13X, in several metrics including higher H2 purities and recoveries and fewer columns needed for a continuous separation process. Most importantly, Cu-TDPAT offers a two-fold improvement in CO2 productivities when compared to zeolite 13X, thus substantially decreasing the bed size required to achieve the same throughput. However, zeolite 13X remains the better adsorbent for reaching high CO2 purities and recoveries due to its higher selectivity for CO2 over all other components in the gas stream, which leads to an overall lower energy consumption. The obtained results show that the final performance strongly depends on an interplay of various factors related to both material and process. Hence, an integrated process and material design approach should be the new paradigm for developing novel gas separation processes.
Hydrogen production from natural gas and biomethane with carbon capture and storage – A techno-environmental analysis
Antonini, Cristina; Treyer, Karin; Streb, Anne; et al. (2020)
Sustainable Energy & Fuels
This study presents an integrated techno-environmental assessment of hydrogen production from natural gas and biomethane, combined with CO2 capture and storage (CCS). We have included steam methane reforming (SMR) and autothermal reforming (ATR) for syngas production. CO2 is captured from the syngas with a novel vacuum pressure swing adsorption (VPSA) process, that combines hydrogen purification and CO2 separation in one cycle. As comparison, we have included cases with conventional amine-based technology. We have extended standard attributional Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) following ISO standards with a detailed carbon balance of the biogas production process (via digestion) and its by-products. The results show that the life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) performance of the VPSA and amine-based CO2 capture technologies is very similar as a result of comparable energy consumption. The configuration with the highest plant-wide CO2 capture rate (almost 100% of produced CO2 captured) is autothermal reforming with a two-stage water-gas shift and VPSA CO2 capture – because the latter has an inherently high CO2 capture rate of 98% or more for the investigated syngas. Depending on the configuration, the addition of CCS to natural gas reforming-based hydrogen production reduces its life-cycle Global Warming Potential by 45–85 percent, while the other environmental life-cycle impacts slightly increase. This brings natural gas-based hydrogen on par with renewable electricity-based hydrogen regarding impacts on climate change. When biomethane is used instead of natural gas, our study shows potential for net negative greenhouse gas emissions, i.e. the net removal of CO2 over the life cycle of biowaste-based hydrogen production. In the special case where the biogas digestate is used as agricultural fertiliser, and where a substantial amount of the carbon in the digestate remains in the soil, the biowaste-based hydrogen reaches net-negative life cycle greenhouse gas emissions even without the application of CCS. Addition of CCS to biomethane-based hydrogen production leads to net-negative emissions in all investigated cases.
Correction: Hydrogen production from natural gas and biomethane with carbon capture and storage – A techno-environmental analysis
Antonini, Cristina; Treyer, Karin; Streb, Anne; et al. (2021)
Sustainable Energy & Fuels
Correction for ‘Hydrogen production from natural gas and biomethane with carbon capture and storage – A techno-environmental analysis’ by Cristina Antonini et al., Sustainable Energy Fuels, 2020, 4, 2967–2986, DOI: 10.1039/D0SE00222D.

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Mijndert Willem van der Spek

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