The objective of the High-Yield Production of Hydrogen and Carbon from Natural Gas Project is to demonstrate the high-yield production of hydrogen and carbon from natural gas. Currently, most hydrogen is produced by steam reforming or partial oxidation. When natural gas is reformed by these processes, the carbon is converted to CO2. Plasma thermal reforming of natural gas results in the carbon being isolated in solid form thus avoiding the cost of sequestering CO2 if this should be required in the future.
Experimental efforts will include determination of energy and mass balances for conversion of natural gas to hydrogen and solid carbon. Process development and experimental efforts will be closely coupled with computer modeling of chemical reaction kinetics, fluid dynamics, and physical geometry of the plasma process. Experimental and modeling efforts will be conducted in an iterative manner to optimize energy efficiency and hydrogen production. These results will be provided to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to allow the economics of this process to be compared with other hydrogen production processes.
The ultimate objective of this project is to demonstrate the integrated efficient thermal conversion of methane to hydrogen, purification of the hydrogen as required, and use of the purified hydrogen in a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell. Our industrial CRADA partner in this demonstration effort is DCH Technology, Inc.
This project is sponsored by the DOE Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Hydrogen Program and is administered by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory
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