Question
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What are the most attractive long-term options for incorporating autothermal reforming (ATR) and/or partial oxidation (POX) to produce blue hydrogen at near-zero CO2 emissions? Or can CO2 emissions from SMR units be further reduced?
Mar-2023
Answers
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Ken Chlapik, Johnson Matthey, Ken.Chlapik@matthey.com
The answer to this question depends on the end user’s pace, amount of Scope 1 and 2 CO2 emissions to be addressed, capital applied, risk appetite, and CCS availability of their facility. Established technologies are ready now to produce low carbon intensity syngas production on existing syngas plants as well as new grassroots production. Johnson Matthey (JM) has a portfolio of technologies that can provide low carbon intensity syngas production to different levels of quality and scale, as well as utilising CO2-laden streams and captured CO2 to produce chemical intermediates and other value-added fuels and products.
With many operators, there is a desire to increase production along with reducing CO2 emissions. JM’s proprietary CleanPace solutions focus on existing SMR units. By applying established JM Advanced Reforming technologies such as ATR and gas heated reforming (GHR), we can provide reductions in CO2 emissions and create increased production in a low carbon intensity retrofit that applies established precombustion carbon capture technologies, which enable high levels (>95% removal). Over 0.5 million t/y of CO2 emissions can be captured on typical large-scale hydrogen plants with a reduced site footprint to post-combustion technology solutions.
The SMR-based hydrogen plant is the largest point source of CO2 emissions on the downstream refinery, but there are a few other sources as well, in particular fired heaters. Some operators are looking beyond the SMR to address a larger portion of their CO2 emissions by replacing existing fossil-based fuels with hydrogen. This is a much more substantial CO2 emission project requiring more capital and a new grassroots low-carbon hydrogen plant with CCS.
This will be a much larger hydrogen plant than what exists for hydroprocessing of clean fuels within the refinery. JM’s LCH technology, which also utilises JM’s Advanced Reforming, provides a magnitude lower carbon intensity and less energy to produce this hydrogen fuel application. An example of this is the HyNET project in the UK, which, at a demo level of hydrogen energy production, is a world-scale-sized hydrogen plant in today’s market. The LCH plant is the source of the process hydrogen and hydrogen fuel in one of the largest hydrogen hubs being funded in the globe that includes a refinery, steel, and ammonia production facility to utilise the hydrogen. Future phases of this project will be at a hydrogen production scale of three times the current world scale.
Other operators are focusing on monetising CO2-laden streams that exist within the refinery or near the facility to provide value-added chemical intermediates and fuels within and outside the refinery. JM’s low carbon intensity technologies, such as Precision Methanol technology, which utilises JM’s Advanced Reforming ATR technology and HyCOgen reverse water gas shift technology, can convert these streams to chemical intermediates and fuels such as SAF.
All these technologies and applications can provide attractive solutions to reducing a facility’s Scope 1 and 2 CO2 emissions.
Mar-2023
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