A Scottish distillery is exploring the use of hydrogen combustion technology in the production of its whisky, as it pursues a net zero strategy.
Bruichladdich Distillery on the Isle of Islay currently uses fuel oil to heat its Victorian still, which has been producing whisky since 1881. The new feasibility project, codenamed HyLaddie, will see Bruichladdich install a Deuterium Dynamic Combustion Chamber (DCC) to investigate whether hydrogen is a viable replacement for the distillery’s heating requirements. The DCC will be deployed by Deuterium’s sister company Protium, a UK‐based green hydrogen energy services company (HESCO) founded in 2019.
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“We are delighted to be given the opportunity to demonstrate how green hydrogen can deliver a zero-emission heat solution for Bruichladdich,” said Christopher Jackson, CEO of Protium and Director of Deuterium.
“Green hydrogen will play a key role in decarbonising the UK manufacturing sector, particularly food and drink where Protium is well established in designing green hydrogen for industrial heat solutions. Together with ITPEnergised and Deuterium, we are eager to demonstrate how hydrogen can be used by Bruichladdich to reduce their footprint and emissions, and look forward to helping them spearhead innovation in a sector that is so rich in tradition and history.”
According to Jackson, the project marks the inaugural deployment of DCC in the UK. The technology generates high-temperature steam using only oxygen and hydrogen that is combusted in a vacuum. The process creates water which can be recycled and eliminates any emission of CO2, NOx and SOx. Together with ITPEnergised and Deuterium, Protium will investigate optimal system design and how the DCC can be integrated into the Victorian distillery. The feasibility study must also consider the preservation of centuries-old equipment, the safeguarding of spirit quality and the impact on the local community.
“At Bruichladdich Distillery, we understand that there is real potential for a hydrogen‐based solution to decarbonise our industry,” said Allan Logan, Operations and Production director of Bruichladdich.
“We are thrilled to have the support of Protium, Deuterium and ITPEnergised to help us assess the feasibility of employing a hydrogen fuel switching solution for our distillery – a move we hope benefits the broader industry.”
Where is the hydrogen coming from?
Would it not be cheaper to use the electricity that is going to make the hydrogen to heat it?
#Roy Davidson. In a sane world it would make complete sense to use electricity directly rather than convert it to hydrogen, but in the massively subsidised world of “climate change” things are different. Orwellian “doublespeak and bellyfeel” is now the norm.
Since the Bruichladdich Distillery is located on Islay where most electricity comes from wind and ocean currents (tidal) the hydrogen will be produced locally and it will be “green” hydrogen. What is very interesting is the Dynamic Combustion Chamber burner, that burns hydrogen and oxygen in a vacuum, so there are no NOx produced which is the major disadvantage in classic hydrogen burners that burn hydrogen in air. This type of burner appears to be a patent of Hydrogen Technologies Inc., so I assume that Protium has a licence to use it.
Not only cheaper, but also a lot simpler not to mention safer.
Combusting hydrogen and oxygen under vacuum will produce highly superheated vacuum steam which isn’t going to condense at the still temperature; effectively it’s like a hot incondensable gas. Compared to conventional condensing steam which delivers a large quantity of latent heat and via a decent heat transfer mechanism (film-wise condensation). the DCC scheme delivers sensible heat only, delivered by conduction/convection and the film heat transfer coefficient for a low pressure gas is small. I predict they will be disappointed with the distillation rate. I’m also puzzled where in the cycle the vacuum steam is condensed and to what sink this heat will be rejected
Some nice pictures of stills here: https://www.whisky.com/information/knowledge/production/details/the-scottish-pot-stills.html
Whilst it is a process worthy of consideration. to label it as green can sometimes be nothing more than obscuring certain elements of the end to end process. Would a representative of the process design team explain their justification of using the eye catching term “green” to their proposal. My comment does not necessarily detract from the benefits to be gained but I am absolutely fed up with avoidance of the truth. Are they going to make use of a new steel, plastic or copper pipe for example?
The hydrogen could be produced from green electrolysis of water and used in
combustion without Nitrogen, so the exhaust is clean. Very interesting way of combustion: heat with no pollution or Co2
Might be a supply/demand issue – the generation can be fairly constant at a rate sufficient to make enough Hydrogen to be stored for each firing of the still? Probably an issue with sufficient power delivery too, stored electricity would have to have a very high discharge rate to match hydrogen combustion?
So why not use the green electricity to produce the steam directly? You don’t need an inefficient intermediate step.
Maybe It depends when you want to use that green electricity.
Just in case the changes affect the whisky quality, I am prepared to offer my services as a quality tester for expenses only.
Converting the electricity to hydrogen means you can use it whenever you want, not just when it’s windy or the tide’s coming in. Obviously we’re going to see climate sceptics rubbishing the technology, but it’s very unlikely the tech team at Bruichladdich haven’t looked at the options and decided this is an economic and sensible thing to do. Master distillers are not idiots and don’t follow fads, especially not on Islay.
To Stuart: As a climate change “denier,” I would say that only climate change “believers” would support a technology that is, on the simplest economic grounds, totally wasteful. What is worse is that even if the UK stops all carbon usage the world’s emissions will continue to rise until at least 2050 without the UK’s white elephants contributing anything worthwhile.