Tobias Massier
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A Novel Approach to Simulate Ortho-para Conversion in Hydrogen Liquefaction based on the van't Hoff Equation

Publication data

Type:
Journal article  Open access
Authors:
Benjamin Kanz, Alessio Tafone, Laura Stops, Tobias Massier and Harald Klein
Published in:
International Journal of Hydrogen Energy
Electronic ISSN: 1879-3487, Print ISSN: 0360-3199
Impact factor: 8.1 (2025)
Publisher:
Elsevier, Amsterdam (The Netherlands)
Publication date:
2025
Abstract:
Liquid hydrogen (LH2) is a promising solution to transport green hydrogen to countries lacking domestic energy resources. One challenge in simulating the liquefaction process is the exothermic ortho-para conversion (OPC). Orthohydrogen is converted to parahydrogen during the process to prevent the liquid hydrogen from evaporating due to the exothermic conversion in the LH2 tank. This paper introduces a new method to simulate the OPC based on the van't Hoff equation and provides an analytical expression for the molar heat of conversion. This van’t Hoff approach is assessed by comparing its results to literature data and an existing equilibrium reactor approach. Both approaches are validated against an existing industrial plant. Both methods show good agreement with the literature data with relative errors of 0.5 % and 0.4 %, respectively. After successfully validating both approaches, these methods enable dynamic simulations of hydrogen liquefaction as they can simulate the OPC across the entire temperature range.
Keywords:
Hydrogen liquefaction, Ortho-para conversion, Simulation methodology, Equation of state, REFPROP, Modified Benedict-Webb-Rubin
DOI:

Further information

Publication status:
This paper is available on the publisher's website as early access article.
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Format: 
@article{Kanz_NovelApproachSimulate_2025,
  author    = {Kanz, Benjamin and Tafone, Alessio and Stops, Laura and Massier, Tobias and Klein, Harald},
  title     = {A Novel Approach to Simulate Ortho-para Conversion in Hydrogen Liquefaction based on the van't Hoff Equation},
  year      = {2025},
  journal   = {International Journal of Hydrogen Energy},
  issn      = {1879-3487},
  publisher = {Elsevier},
  address   = {Amsterdam, The Netherlands},
  doi       = {10.1016/j.ijhydene.2025.02.304},
  keywords  = {Hydrogen liquefaction, Ortho-para conversion, Simulation methodology, Equation of state, REFPROP, Modified Benedict-Webb-Rubin},
}
@article{Kanz_NovelApproachSimulate_2025,
  author       = {Kanz, Benjamin and Tafone, Alessio and Stops, Laura and Massier, Tobias and Klein, Harald},
  title        = {A Novel Approach to Simulate Ortho-para Conversion in Hydrogen Liquefaction based on the van't Hoff Equation},
  date         = {2025},
  journaltitle = {International Journal of Hydrogen Energy},
  issn         = {1879-3487},
  publisher    = {Elsevier},
  location     = {Amsterdam, The Netherlands},
  doi          = {10.1016/j.ijhydene.2025.02.304},
  keywords     = {Hydrogen liquefaction, Ortho-para conversion, Simulation methodology, Equation of state, REFPROP, Modified Benedict-Webb-Rubin},
  pubstate     = {prepublished},
}
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