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Well, I am not selling my stock in Air Products and other H2 plant design firms (OK I got no stock, but if I did, I am holding). The reason is improving on the current process is much easier said than done.

 

Interesting read. I went to the source to learn more.
Bridging the Gap | The UCSB Current

This may make us redefine efficiency. Traditional measure of efficiency, we measure power out versus potential chemical power in. Here we get a redefinition - chemical power input does not include the potential to oxidize the carbon. For the same amount of electrical power, we need twice the methane, but don't have the byproduct of carbon dioxide. How much is that worth? It takes about $0.02 of methane to make 1 kwh of electricity at the plug from a modern combined cycle power plant (normally these things are quite large - 500 MW capacity, but very efficient). It probably takes around $0.04 of methane to make 1 kwh of electricity in a ocgt peaking plant. Perhaps for $0.05 of methane small scale generators using this process and solid oxide fuel cells to produce power. That is a premium of only $0.03/kwh for very low ghg. Carbon capture that captures less of the carbon of a coal plant costs about $0.05/kwh, which makes this technology less expensive if you have inexpensive natural gas, like the US does today, or inexpensive bio methane or methanol.

For fcv though, this is not a miracle that solves any problems. Let's say it takes $1.60 worth of methane under this method to make a kg of h2 instead of $0.80 under SMR.

https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/htac_oct13_10_bonner.pdf
Perhaps you can make it on site at the station and save, but production costs will be much higher than central SMR ($0.68) and you still have the station equipment and operations for 10,000 psi hydrogen ($4.30). That puts us at, at least $6.50/kg for fuel. This is a very optimistic scenario. In california cost of current tech is $18/kg and they are hoping that stations they build in 5 years get this down to $9/kg. A prius prime gets 54 mpg on gasoline, and 133 mpge on electricity. A clarity (most efficient fuel cell) gets 67 mpge. A clarity phev gets 110 mpge and 42 mpg when battery is low. A tesla model 3 gets 126 mpge. Lets say that green electricity is $0.15/kwh ($5.055/gge (its much less here in texas)), a miracle happens and you get green hydrogen for that $6.50/kg, gasoline goes up to $4/gallon and the prime does half on gasoline, the clarity 75%. Over 100,000 miles that fuel cell vehicle will use $9,701 worth of fuel, the mirai $5,604, the clarity phev $5828, and the bev model 3 - $4,012. The phev prime the least expensive car to buy, but this may change versus a long range bev. I don't see how a fuel cell car can compete even if all the hydrogen is subsidized without huge government support. It may see that government support in japan, but they don't use much natural gas, so this process won't help there.

Air Products valuation really doesn't believe they will make money from 10,000 psi car fueling ;-)

 

certainly no shame in this bit of confusion, because until the lab's experimental costs are revealed, there's no way to tell how expensive or green it might be - should all of it (theoretically) go into production.
For instance, the hydrogen industry likes to say how green hydrogen production 'can-be' , when the energy comes from wind or PV, yet the process is way less efficient than storing the green power in a battery, rather than a high pressure/10K PSI tank .
Oh - then there's the ever falling prices of batteries that keep making hydrogen further uneconomical. imo the equation is to amorphic to say what's going to be best sometime down the road. Even so, it looks a whole lot more promising than that BS commercial Toyota did, literally, using BS as hydrogen fuel stock.
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That's a lot of quality carbon, 3 to1 by mass to hydrogen. Could be good for the expansion of use of carbon fiber composites. No mining or smelting pollution as with metals. What's the impact of epoxy or polyester resin manufacture? Taken a liking to these lately. Aviation as unique as you are :: Diamond Aircraft Industries

 

Actually there are uses for H2 plant CO2 it is very pure so food grade I am thinking. Drink more Coke...problem solved.

 

Just don't burp after you chug it

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Just what we need -- a ton of Coke per person per day.

 

Coke (fuel), a solid carbonaceous residue derived from destructive distillation of coal - Wikipedia

JeffD

 

That is coke, not Coke. But it still leads to the same atmospheric problem. Better to sequester it as a building material.

 

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We don't need to go through each step of the process, all we need to know is feedstock and energy in, and fuel out. SMR using pressure shift at a big plant can be 80% efficient. For SMR 4H2 require 29% more energy than the CH4 and 2H2O provide even after oxidizing the carbon. This is often heat and electricity supplied by more methane. 4 CH4 + 2H2O(l) + O2 -> 4CO2 + 10H2 + wasted heat. Of course this heat and electricity could be supplied by something else, like waste heat from refining oil, or electricity generation, or fetilizer manufacture. For cracking CH4 to C + 2H2 also requires heat and electricity. If we can't use the carbon, and use the hydrogen for heat and electricity, we probably will get something like 2CH4 +02 -> 2C + 2H2 + 2H2O. Now if this hydrogen production is at 10,000 psi fueling stations, there probably is nothing else to supply the waste heat. In industrial production or a power plant it becomes much more economically feasible.

Let's say you can get 60% efficiency on H2 in a solid oxide fuel cell, and use the waste heat to crack the natural gas. 2H2 has 66% of the energy of CH4, multiplied by the efficiency we get around 40% about the same as the old steam natural gas plants in california, and it would use about 1.5 times the natural gas as a brand new ccgt power plant, but be accessible for small distributed generation. Given the high cost of electricity in california, I could see a lot of high tech companies simply adding this kind of generation. Now for transportation fuel, you do the calculations, it simply doesn't work well.

 

I'm guessing we are going down in the weeds here. Looking up a handy dandy table or a link like this

Bond Lengths and Energies

We find that to break apart the bonds of methane takes 1662 KJ/mole
Cracking will reunite 2 hydrogen bonds or 2 x 436 kj/mole = 872 kj/mole
If the carbon were to remain free it would take 1662 -872 = 790 kj/mole for the reaction. That is almost half the energy, but that carbon will form something on top of the catalyst in the process. I'm guessing graphite which has 3 single bonds for each carbon molecule, or 3/2 of a C-C bond or 522 kj/mole of methane. That makes things a little better. Now the process requires 790 - 522 = 268 Kj/mole of methane to crack into H2 and graphite, or 134 KJ/mole of H2 produced. If the carbon product is something different we get a different answer.

My guess is the process is only about 80% efficient. The graphite and H2 are much hotter than the methane then when they went into the process, and some of that heat may be recovered, but some will be wasted. Electricity is needed to skim off the graphite, and to separate the H2S from the natural gas before the process, and separate the H2 after the process.

 

I was hoping that this thread was going to be about something like that; a way to potentially use a liquid hydrogen source in the car.

The key part of the carbon fiber composites is the fiber. This carbon will be a powder that can't be effectively converted into a fiber. Most carbon fibers are made from plastic strands that are heating until they carbonize. 'Green' carbon fiber starts with Rayon instead.

There are uses for this carbon fiber though. If this works out, and hydrogen cars catch on, we'll likely end up with an over supply of it in time. It's an issue that biodiesel faces with glycerol, and Greek yogurt with acid whey.

Now, if the molten alloy could be tweaked to produce carbon nanotubes, those could be spun into a yarn for use in carbon fiber applications. It would also be awesome.

We could also store it until renewable electricity production peaks during the day, and then reverse the process to make pure methane, or go a step further for a light, sweet, synthetic petroleum. Maybe use it to feed cyanbacteria that produce hydrogen.