Abstract
This study focuses on the techno-economic comparison of blue hydrogen technologies. Four technologies shown below are considered for the preliminary evaluation.
Steam methane reforming with carbon capture
Auto thermal reforming with carbon capture
Syngas chemical looping technology
Chemical looping reforming technology
Industrial literature showed that syngas chemical looping technology and chemical looping reforming technology show high thermal efficiency and low capital and operating costs. However, challenges exist in the scale up, system integration and commercialization. Further R&D efforts may make this technology superior in near future. Steam methane reforming is the most established commercial technology for H2 production. However, when CO2 capture is included in scope, thermal efficiency decreases drastically and may become economically unviable if the H2 selling price is less than 2 $/kg. Auto thermal reforming shows attractive techno-economic indicators in terms of capital cost, thermal efficiency, and payback potential. Commercial references for this technology are limited comparatively but technology licensors do exist. Hence, this technology is identified as the recommended option for blue hydrogen production.
Indeed, ATR process is even more attractive for ADNOC due to the availability of oxygen as a waste stream in one of its facilities. To this end, it is intended to investigate the prospects of adopting auto thermal process for blue hydrogen production in ADNOC by leveraging the available oxygen supply. A further detailed study is conducted to evaluate this proposal through simulation analysis, equipment design and costing analysis and thereby verify the technical feasibility, capital cost, operating cost, thermal efficiency, emissions profile and required selling price of H2.
