Assessment of Hydrogen Production Systems based on Natural Gas Conversion with Carbon Capture and Storage

摘要

Introduction of hydrogen in the energy system, as a new energy carrier complementary to electricity, is exciting much interest not only for heat and power generation applications, but also for transport and petro-chemical sectors. In transition to a low carbon economy, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies represent another way to reduce CO_2 emissions. Hydrogen can be produced from various feedstocks, the most important being based on fossil fuels (natural gas and coal). This paper investigates the techno-economic and environmental aspects of hydrogen production based on natural gas reforming conversion with and without carbon capture. As CO_2 capture options, gas - liquid absorption and chemical looping were evaluated. The evaluated plant concepts generate 300 MWth hydrogen (based on hydrogen LHV) with purity higher than 99.95 % (vol.), suitable to be used both in petro-chemical applications as well as for Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cells for mobile applications. For the designs with CCS, the carbon capture rate is about 70 % for absorption-based scheme while for chemical looping-based system is ＞99 %. Special emphasis is put in the paper on the assessment of various plant configurations and process integration issues using CAPE techniques. The mass and energy balances have been used furthermore for techno-economic and environmental impact assessments.