Frontiers in Energy - Call for Papers: "Special Issue on Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment of Hydrogen Energy Systems: Global Perspective "

Frontiers in Energy is an international journal that presents “Cutting-edge, Innovative, Interdisciplinary” research in the field of energy. It is dedicated to establishing a high-level academic exchange platform for researchers, scientists, technologists, engineers, and decision-makers in the field of energy to share their original research results and discoveries. Indexed by SCI, SCOPUS, Google Scholar, INSPEC, etc., the journal has attracted a large readership worldwide.

Growing global consumption of fossil fuels has dramatically increased the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, leading to an undesired global energy crisis and adverse environmental impacts. Rapid deployment of renewable and low-carbon energy resources is crucial to help mitigating these challenges. Clean technologies are currently under development and being optimized to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. Hydrogen is currently used as an energy and chemical vector in various industrial sectors. The contribution from hydrogen to the overall carbon footprint in petrochemical and manufacturing is likely to be significant, requiring cleaner production pathways. Furthermore, when combined with fuel cells, hydrogen can also reduce the carbon footprint in the transport sector. Given the importance of petrochemical, manufacturing, and transport sectors’ contributions to the overall global warming, the majority of G20 countries are actively developing and deploying hydrogen strategies with a focus on technologies and supply chain development/optimization aiming at reducing production cost and carbon footprint of hydrogen and its end use applications. Life cycle assessment (LCA) has been used as an internationally accepted methodology to assess sustainability and support technology development.

There are three important topics that require further collaborative scientific research in the LCA of hydrogen production area:

• Guidelines and standards required to harmonize carbon footprint assessment across the different hydrogen production platforms.

• Assess sustainability indicators using integrated assessment frameworks.

• Improving data quality, methodology and sharing to assess all sustainability indicators and improve public trust.

Frontiers in Energy is launching a Special Issue entitled “Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment of Hydrogen Energy Systems: Global Perspective”.

This Special Issue aims to report recent progress and developments in the life cycle assessment of hydrogen production technologies and end use applications across energy sectors and regions globally. Submitted manuscripts (Communication, Full Paper, Minireview/Review, Viewpoints, News & Highlights, Perspective, etc.) should not have been published previously nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere. All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a peer-review process.

Topics for Special Issue:

1. Life Cycle Analysis Methodology to Quantify Hydrogen Carbon Intensity: scope of LCA and system boundary, guidelines, methods and protocols, coproducts handling methods, etc.
2. Data Requirement for Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment of Hydrogen Production: process-level data (Scope 1), background data (Scope 2 and 3), regional and time variability, uncertainty, etc.
3. Life Cycle Analysis of Hydrogen Production Technologies: methane reformation, carbon capture and sequestration, methane pyrolysis, low-temperature and high-temperature water electrolysis, coal, and biomass gasification, etc.
4. Trends in Life Cycle and Sustainability Analysis of Hydrogen Deployment: resource availability and energy security, air pollution and environmental justice, water-energy nexus, societal impacts, economic sustainability, etc.   
5. Life cycle Analysis of Hydrogen Energy Carrier: ammonia, liquid organic hydrocarbon, methanol, liquid hydrogen, energy storage and delivery, etc.
6. Sustainability Challenges in the Context of Hydrogen Strategies: current and emerging hydrogen applications and markets, strategies and roadmaps, policy incentives and implications, etc.   

Guest Editors
Dr. Amgad Elgowainy, Argonne National Laboratory
Email: aelgowainy@anl.gov (this opens in a new tab)

Dr. Florence Lefebvre-Joud, Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique
Email: florence.lefebvre-joud@cea.fr (this opens in a new tab)

Dr. KUDOH Yuki, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology
Email: kudoh.yuki@aist.go.jp (this opens in a new tab)

Dr. Nawshad Haque, CSIRO Energy
Email: Nawshad.Haque@csiro.au (this opens in a new tab)

Prof. Xiaomin Xie, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Email: xiexiaomin@sjtu.edu.cn (this opens in a new tab)

The submission website for this journal is located at: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/fie (this opens in a new tab). Full manuscripts should be prepared based upon the editorial and formatting guidelines provided in the

instructions for authors for Frontiers in Energy, which can be accessed from the website: https://link.springer.com/journal/11708/submission-guidelines. (this opens in a new tab) It should be noted that it is important that authors select “Special Issue： Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment of Hydrogen Energy Systems: Global Perspective” when you reach the “Article Type” step in the submission process.

Deadline for full manuscript submission is July 31, 2024

For more information, please contact: aelgowainy@anl.gov;

Nawshad.Haque@csiro.au