Hydrogen electrolyser technology advancements Affordable electrolytic green hydrogen for processing refined products will make the business case to invest in refinery decarbonisation technology more robust
Stephen B Harrison sbh4 Consulting
H ydrogen is the blood flowing through the arteries of modern refineries. Whether the refined product feedstock is traditional crude, vegetable oils, or synthetic crude, hydrogen is mission-critical for hydrocarbon processing. Hydrogenation to convert plant oils to bio-diesel; hydrotreating of syncrude to remove oxygenates; isomerisation to achieve the pour point specification for Jet; hydrocracking to upgrade heavier molecules to marketable products; and desulphurisation to enable the use of abundantly available, lower cost sour crudes, are all reliant on hydrogen. Hydrogen is essential for a variety of processes. • Hydrogenation to convert plant oils to bio-diesel. • Hydrotreating of syncrude to remove oxygenates. • Isomerisation to achieve pour point specification for Jet. • Hydrocracking to upgrade heavier molecules to marketable products. • Desulphurisation to produce on-spec products from a range of lower-cost ‘sour’ crudes. Refinery hydrogen production has traditionally led to carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from the reforming of natural gas or light hydrocarbons. Green hydrogen from electrolysis is a potential decarbonisation route to reduce the environmental impact of hydrogen production. However, its deployment has been hampered by high Capex and Opex costs. Breaking through to better business cases Australian start-up Cavendish Renewable Technology (CRT) has developed its C-Cell
electrolyser (see Figure 1 ), which integrates aspects of solid oxide electrolysis and alkaline water electrolysis. Chiral Energy, a peer hydrogen tech start- up, has achieved a technological breakthrough that improves the performance of hydrogen electrolyser electrodes. These electrodes convert electrons and water into hydrogen and oxygen. This advancement is grounded in biochemistry and life sciences, exploiting what nature has been doing for millennia. Plants convert water, soil nutrients, CO2 from the air, and energy from the sun into starches and sugars. Sucrose, glucose, and fructose are all chiral molecules. Amino acids are also chiral molecules, and human DNA is a chiral helix. Chiral Energy has extensively researched how nature uses chirality to its advantage and has exploited this to improve the energy efficiency and process intensity of hydrogen electrolysers, resulting in more hydrogen per dollar of Capex, and less power consumption per kg of hydrogen produced. Figure 1 CRT C-Cell – hybrid electrolyser for efficient hydrogen production
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