Towards sus­tain­able hydro­gen pro­duc­tion: Inte­grat­ing elec­tri­fied and con­vec­tive steam reformer with car­bon cap­ture and stor­age leads the next-gen­er­a­tion hydro­gen pro­duc­tion plant.

In this arti­cle, we have devel­oped an inno­v­a­tive and sus­tain­able new process for pro­duc­ing hydro­gen. We have inte­grat­ed elec­tri­fied steam methane reform­ing (e‑SMR) with con­vec­tive reform­ing and car­bon cap­ture (CCS).

The plant is designed to sub­stan­tial­ly enhance the sus­tain­abil­i­ty and effi­cien­cy of hydro­gen pro­duc­tion while address­ing the major envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns of tra­di­tion­al meth­ods.

Key com­po­nents of this new process scheme:

1. Elec­tri­fied Steam Methane Reform­ing (e‑SMR):
   • The reac­tor utilis­es elec­tric heat­ing. This not only low­ers the car­bon foot­print but also reduces nat­ur­al gas con­sump­tion.
2. Con­vec­tive Reform­ing:
   • The process scheme involves also a con­vec­tive reform­ing which inte­grates the heat recov­ery. In this way, the over­all process effi­cien­cy is fur­ther increased.
3. Car­bon Cap­ture (CCS):
   • By inte­grat­ing a CCS step it is pos­si­ble to fur­ther avoid CO₂ emis­sions.

Plant func­tion­al­i­ty:

This proves con­verts nat­ur­al gas into hydro­gen through steam methane reform­ing. Unlike tra­di­tion­al plants, which rely heav­i­ly on burn­ing methane for heat, this scheme uses elec­tric heat­ing to sup­ply the nec­es­sary ener­gy for the endother­mic­i­ty of the reac­tion.

By opti­miz­ing the bal­ance between elec­tri­fi­ca­tion, con­vec­tive reform­ing, and CCS, the plant can achieve high pro­duc­tiv­i­ty with a min­i­mized ener­gy demand and car­bon foot­print.

Envi­ron­men­tal and eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits:

The com­bi­na­tion of elec­tri­fied and con­vec­tive reform­ing with CCS enables the plant to achieve a 35% reduc­tion in nat­ur­al gas con­sump­tion and 85% decrease in CO₂ emis­sions. This makes the plant not only more sus­tain­able but also more cost-effec­tive. The lev­elized cost of hydro­gen (LCOH) is 0.28 €/Nm³ H₂ remains com­pet­i­tive, espe­cial­ly when com­pared to con­ven­tion­al hydro­gen pro­duc­tion meth­ods that use CCS.

This inno­v­a­tive process scheme rep­re­sents an inno­v­a­tive solu­tion to pro­duce low car­bon hydro­gen. By lever­ag­ing process inten­si­fi­ca­tion and car­bon cap­ture, we were able to devel­op a clean­er and more effi­cient solu­tion that aligns with both glob­al efforts to tran­si­tion to low-car­bon ener­gy sys­tems and pro­duc­tion cost reduc­tion.

Full tech­ni­cal details ​in our last pub­li­ca­tion.