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

Thu May 15 12:28:16 CDT 2014

All,

I have invited Dr. Sam Weaver and Kelly Burnham of Proton Power, to join
this discussion so that you can answer your questions directly or they can
respond to your previous questions.  To review the thread to date see the
archives at
http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/gasification_lists.bioenergylists.
org/2014-May/date.html

Visit the Proton Power website at http://www.protonpower.com/

After several years of development Proton Power is working through  their
first year of a 750 kWe scale up plant at Wampler's Farm Sausage in Lenoir,
Tennessee.

http://www.protonpower.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Wamplers-Case-Study.pd
f

Tom Miles

T R Miles Technical Consultants Inc.

Portland, OR

tmiles at trmiles.com

www.trmiles.com

www.gasifiiers.bioenergylists.org

From: Gasification [mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On
Behalf Of Art Krenzel
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2014 11:47 PM
To: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification
Subject: Re: [Gasification] Tennessee company - pyrolysis biochar + hydrogen
($1.75 per gallon diesel-equivalent?)

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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