Enabling Carbon Capture via Hydrogen Separation Membrane

Today, up to 95% of hydrogen (H₂) produced is termed grey H₂ as it is formed via steam methane reforming (SMR) using fossil fuels such as natural gas. This hydrogen is used in producing everything from fuels to plastics and is aptly named grey H₂ as the carbon dioxide (CO₂) from this reaction is expensive to capture and is often released or sent to the stack to be burnt off. With the global net-zero CO₂ emissions target looming, there is an urgent need for technologies that can improve the efficiency of processes using grey H₂ and economically capture the released CO₂ making grey H₂ into blue H₂.

This technology offer is a hydrogen separation membrane that reduces the cost of hydrogen purification and carbon capture. It is a temperature and corrosion-resistant membrane that is able to selectively filter out H₂. By splitting syngas into H₂ and CO₂-rich streams, it simultaneously purifies hydrogen and pre-concentrates the CO₂ for transport and sequestration. Furthermore, there is an additional benefit that waste H₂ can be inexpensively recovered to improve the overall process efficiency. Hydrogen plants incorporating this technology now produce blue H₂ and can generate additional income through higher efficiencies, hydrotreater margins, and carbon credits.

The technology owner is seeking partners and collaborators, especially those in the oil and gas refineries or other H₂ intensive industries, for pilot trials of their technology.

This technology offer is a proprietary polymer membrane that enables carbon capture via hydrogen separation. The features and specifications of the technology are as follows:

• Hollow fibre membranes (polymer-based)
• H₂ selective (up to 99.95% pure)
• Temperature resistant (up to 150^oC)
• Corrosion and contaminants resistant (e.g. H₂S, C₄-C₆ hydrocarbons)
• Able to process 5-500m³/hr of gas (per module, based on 36km fiber in a 10" by 1m configuration)
• Widely applicable to H₂ purification and readily scalable modular design
• Can generate carbon credits through supporting CO₂ capture  

This technology can be applied to almost all industrial processes that produce or use H₂. The potential applications are (not limited to):

• H₂ recovery (hydrotreater and refinery off-gas, green hydrogen storage etc.)
• Sustainable hydrogen generation (bio-conversion, pyrolysis, and biomass gasification)
• Enabling carbon capture via H₂ separation (SMR etc.)
• H₂ separation process (petrochemical production, plastics manufacturing, hydrogenation of fats, solid oxide hydrogen engines etc.)

Global efforts to decarbonize are expected to cause the demand for blue and green H₂ to grow enormously over the next couple of decades, taking this $100B market to more than $500B by 2050. However, today, as much as 99% of the H₂ produced is from syngas or SMR. These grey H₂ processes are of enormous scale, integrated within large refineries and chemical plants, and are not easily replaced by emerging green H₂ production methods. Coupled with the difficulties associated with recovering valuable H₂ from off gases that are currently flared, there is a massive opportunity for technologies that can operate in these conditions to make grey H₂ blue.

• Simple and cheap separation method for H₂
• Carbon credits from carbon capture
• Process and cost recovery from recycling of H₂

This technology offers a more energy-efficient method of capturing hydrogen from industrial gas streams, replacing costly Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) units and pre-treatment processes required by other membranes in these applications.