Automating Hydrogen Purification with Siemens Controls

Summary

The Manufacturing Automation team partnered with a client in the materials processing industry to develop the controls and safety programs for an industrial hydrogen purification skid. While the client had an established controls team versed in Rockwell PLC platforms, they were in need of Siemens PLC and HMI programming expertise. In addition to designing and implementing the system’s control architecture, DMC also conducted training for the client, transitioned code ownership, and provided ongoing support to the client’s team to ensure ongoing project success.

Customer Benefits

Solution

Hydrogen is an important part of modern industry with uses in fertilizer production, petroleum refinement, metal processing, and a variety of other applications. One of the prominent methods of hydrogen production is electrolysis–a process that uses electric current to split water into its core components of hydrogen and oxygen.

After electrolysis, the produced hydrogen must be separated from the co-product oxygen, residual water, and other impurities. The hydrogen purification skid is designed to route “contaminated” hydrogen through a series of dehumidifiers, deoxygenators, and dryers to produce an isolated or “purified” product.

DMC designed and implemented a Siemens-based controls architecture for our client’s hydrogen purification skid.

Controls Solution

The program, which runs on failsafe S7-1500 PLC, handles process control sequencing, interlocks, and safety functions. To ensure safe, reliable, and repeatable operations on the skid and accelerate development time, DMC leveraged Siemens’ Library of Basic Processes (LBP) and WinCC Professional to implement a controls solution that adhered to end-user standards and effectively used the pre-built PLC and HMI code modules.

Client Training

Prior to transitioning ownership of the PLC and HMI programs over to the client, DMC conducted a series of in-person training sessions with the client’s controls team. These sessions were designed to:

• Introduce Siemens programming concepts and best practices to a Rockwell-experienced controls team.
• Provide an overview of the Siemens LBP implementation.
• Familiarize the client with the new project-specific codebase.

As a result, the client gained the confidence and capability to independently maintain, modify, and extend the system following the official handoff of the project.

Ongoing Support

After handing off PLC and HMI program ownership, DMC continued to provide support to the client team to ensure a smooth transition and the success of future efforts. As DMC continues to maintain a relationship with this client, ongoing support activities include:

• Providing onsite and remote support for FAT, commissioning, and SAT efforts.
• Troubleshooting complex issues and edge cases.
• Answering Siemens, LBP, and project-specific questions and offering programming-related guidance.

Results

By partnering closely and collaborating effectively with our client, DMC engineered a safe, standardized, and end-user-aligned controls solution for our client’s industrial-scale hydrogen purification system. In addition, the code’s library-based architecture and DMC’s hands-on training efforts resulted in a scalable solution that the client’s team felt comfortable and empowered to own and maintain.