Tesis Pregrado
Permanent URI for this collection
Browse
Browsing Tesis Pregrado by Author "Alarcón Cartes, Nayareth Vanessa"
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Modelo de declaración ambiental de producto para la producción de hidrógeno verde.(Universidad de Concepción, 2024) Alarcón Cartes, Nayareth Vanessa; Zaror Zaror, ClaudioBy the year 2050, Chile aims to reduce its CO2 emissions and decrease its reliance on imported energy by leveraging its capacity to generate energy from renewable sources. This positions Chile as a potential global leader in the production and exportation of green hydrogen. In this context, the transparency of environmental performance associated with product development constitutes an increasingly important element in international market competitiveness. Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) provide verifiable and standardized information, endorsed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), regarding the environmental performance of specific products, forming part of the quality attributes significant to customers. Currently, there is no established format for creating an Environmental Product Declaration for green hydrogen production. Therefore, this study presents an initial approach to a proposed EPD model for hydrogen production in Chile, considering its generation from wind energy and its system boundaries from cradle to gate. To develop this model, it is necessary to determine the life cycle stages comprising the system, as well as the material and energy inventories associated with each stage. To validate this model, an example calculation is performed to produce 1 kg of green hydrogen, considered the functional unit of the EPD. To address these objectives, literature information is used to identify the main components of the hydrogen production process, including energy generation through wind turbines, seawater desalination by reverse osmosis, the use of an alkaline electrolyzer, and material transportation. These stages are divided into upstream and core processes, with upstream involving water and energy production and core involving the manufacture and operation of the electrolyzer, as well as the energy production required by it. Downstream processes are not included here as there is a wide range of options for conditioning, storage, transportation, and use of green hydrogen. The EPD proposal consists of three main stages: first, presenting the bases for conducting Life Cycle Assessment; then, presenting the results through tables and graphs; and finally, interpreting these results, which include a sensitivity analysis of the system's most critical parameters and comparing the climate change indicator with literature data. This allows understanding the environmental impact and identifying improvements. The results show that the core stage is the most significant in terms of environmental burden, and steel is the most contributing material to environmental impacts in both stages, due to its use in the manufacturing and installation of the wind turbine and electrolyzer. The sensitivity analysis reveals that variations in wind turbine electricity generation have a significant impact on the environmental profile, while the electrolyzer's energy consumption has a lesser effect. It is concluded that Chile has the capacity to produce hydrogen with a lower impact in the climate change category than that presented internationally, demonstrating the competitive advantage of our country.