Cost-Competitive Hydrogen Generation with Pre-Combustion Carbon Capture

GTI Energy is creating new technology to produce low-cost clean hydrogen at scale. This helps energy companies to meet the reliability cost and safety needs that their customers demand at the same time they are reducing the impact on the environment.

GTI Energy has developed a unique hydrogen generator technology that produces hydrogen from natural gas using Sorbent Enhanced Steam Reforming (SER) and inherently captures any CO₂ created in the process. Two different pilot active demonstrations of this technology are underway; one in the UK, with Cranfield University and support from the UK Government’s department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the other is in the USA in Des Plaines with U.S. DOE AMO support.

GTI Energy’s hydrogen generator technology offers a cost-competitive solution for the conversion of natural gas to hydrogen, while avoiding carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. The process, based on sorbent enhanced reforming, is different from conventional steam-methane reforming (SMR) or autothermal reforming (ATR) with carbon capture, in that it captures the CO₂ produced in the reforming reaction inherently in the process. CO₂ capture is not an additional, capital-intensive process step.

This inherent capability in the GTI Energy process leads to its higher carbon capture potential, its substantially lower capital cost, and smaller footprint. The result is a low-cost pathway to carbon emissions-free hydrogen up to very large scale. The concept for a 5MMSCFD (12,050 kg/day) modular demonstration plant has been defined and costs estimated for its construction and operation. The design is scalable to very large H₂ production rates (e.g., 100MMSCFD [241,000 kg/day]) with the attendant economies of scale, with single or multiple modules. When utilized with power generation in a combined cycle power plant, the technology provides the lowest cost of electricity for reduced carbon applications.

GTI Energy has completed pilot testing, under U.S. DOE funding, which verified catalyst stability and successfully demonstrated Sorption Enhanced Reforming (SER) chemistry and process operation. Ongoing modifications of the pilot plant in GTI Energy’s facility near Chicago, USA, will further mitigate development risks related to calciner and solids handling components.

Learn more about GTI Energy's hydrogen production process. (0.7MB pdf)