Towards Sustainable Hydrogen Production: Integrating Electrified and Convective Steam Reforming, and Carbon Capture and Storage

Abstract

This work presents a novel process for hydrogen production using electrified steam methane reforming (e-SMR) combined with convective reforming and carbon capture and storage (CCS) to reduce natural gas (NG) consumption and carbon dioxide emissions compared to traditional fuel-fired reforming. The reforming reaction's energy is supplied by direct electric heating, saving 35% NG and reducing CO2 emissions by 29%. Convective SMR decreases the electric load on the main e-SMR reactor, achieving a slightly higher thermal efficiency (80.2%) than conventional fuel-fired reforming (78.9%). By incorporating amine-based CO2 capture, CO2 emissions can be cut by 85%, and NG consumption by 50%, while maintaining high energy efficiency (79.4%) with only a 14% increase in capital costs, a favorable comparison to the 80% increase in capital costs for CO2 capture from fuel-fired reforming (69.8% efficiency). This e-SMR process with convective reforming and CO2 capture offers a levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH) of 0.281 € Nm-3 H2, significantly lower than the 0.311 € Nm-3 H2 for conventional fuel-fired reforming with CO2 capture. It also has comparable CO2 emissions (1.59 vs. 0.99 kg CO2 emitted per kg H2) but produces less CO2 (6.39 vs. 9.88 kg CO2 produced per kg H2) by using renewable electricity for the SMR. Compared to conventional fuel-fired reforming, this process achieves similar LCOH (0.283 vs. 0.282 € Nm-3 H2) while drastically reducing CO2 emissions (1.59 vs. 8.99 kg CO2 emitted per kg H2). This innovative approach demonstrates significant environmental and economic benefits, making it a viable alternative to traditional hydrogen production methods.

Keywords: electrified reforming, Hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, direct electrification, convective reformer