[Gasification] Tennessee company - pyrolysis biochar + hydrogen ($1.75 per gallon diesel-equivalent?)

[Art Krenzel]

Rex,
It is always good to hear from you again.  I can always count on you to come up with better, faster and cheaper ways to get things done.  $2/kg is considerably different than $12/kg for hydrogen costs.
What biomass feedstock and gasification style does PROTON POWER use to produce such high hydrogen content syn gas?  I notice no nitrogen content in the syn gas so I presume they are using pure oxygen as the oxidizing agent.  Is it pressurized as well?  I see the photo on their website shows a horizontal "pug mill" style mixer which I assume is their gasifier as well.
Good to hear from you again.

Art 

 




> From: rex at whitfieldfarm.co.za
> To: gasification at lists.bioenergylists.org
> Date: Thu, 15 May 2014 07:59:13 +0200
> Subject: Re: [Gasification] Tennessee company - pyrolysis biochar + hydrogen	($1.75 per gallon diesel-equivalent?)
> 
> Art,
> 
> You are correct about making hydrogen from methane particularly at the
> $4/MMBTU level seen in the USA. However, this is only strictly true on large
> scale. At small scale gasification is an order of magnitude cheaper than
> steam methane reforming. When I made enquiries about a small (75bpd)
> hydrotreater, I was given a rough cost of $10m with a further approximately
> $8m for the SMR. Needless to say, I nearly fell off my chair! Some of the
> issues were that the design of a hydrogen plant is by its very nature
> expensive. Then there are materials of construction - stainless steel. Then
> there are the safety aspects that require as much instrumentation as a 2000
> bpd plant. One comment I got was "do they make hydrogen compressors that
> small?".
> 
> Proton Power claim to have a process that produces 65% H2, 30% CO2 and 5% CO
> starting at the 250kWe scale. It is a very small step from there via
> pressure swing absorption to get 99.9% hydrogen. PSA equipment does exist at
> small scale and they have the compressors for compressing syngas. This
> should produce hydrogen at the $2/kg level rather than the methane SMR route
> of $12/kg.
> 
> Kind regards
> Rex 
> 
> Dr. Karve,
> 
> Being able to technically generate hydrogen using incandescent carbon in a
> water gas reaction does not make the process economically competitive.
>  Typically, the use of incandescent carbon is a batch, cyclic process which
> produces pulses of gases which vary in purity over each cycle
> 
> Compare the economics of using a batch feedstock which has a variable
> composition to one which has a very pure, low cost feedstock (CH4) day in
> and day out.  As a process designer, you can readily see that even through
> the chemistry works out to generate hydrogen using incandescent carbon, the
> day to day practicality of operating a multistage process with such a
> variable feedstock is much more difficult and more expensive.
> 
> Art,
> 
> You make a very valid point, particularly on large scale equipment. However,
> down at small scale, you cannot beat the competitiveness of gasification as
> a hydrogen producer. It is an order of magnitude less than going the SMR
> route using methane. 
> 
> 
> 
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