Hydrogen Production Directly Using Petroleum Coke

Hydrogen is widely used by petroleum refineries in upgrading processes, necessary to facilitate the hydrotreating/catalytic hydrocracking of heavy hydrocarbon molecules, and the reduction of sulfur content.  At an industrial scale, three major technologies are presently used to produce hydrogen, depending on the primary energy sources or available feedstock: coal gasification, natural gas steam reforming, and water electrolysis. 

Petroleum coke (or petcoke), similar to coal, is a byproduct of refinery processes.  The U.S. refineries produce more than 125,000 short tons petcoke per day (st/d), most of which is produced in Calfornia, Texas and Louisiana.  With a low heating value (LHV) of 6.024 MMBtu/barrel (equivalent to 8.826 MWhr/st), petcoke produced in the U.S. potentially is worth 17,689 MW electricity assuming 40% efficiency.  However, due to larger activation energies, higher sulfur content and less volatile materials than coal, petcoke is not a desirable feedstock for a conventional coal-burnt power plant and more than 62% of petcoke was exported annually.

Instead of purchasing hydrogen over the fence, a refinery potentially can build on-site hydrogen production infrastructure directly utilizing its available resource (petcoke).  Materials & Systems Research Inc. currently is developing an advanced hydrogen production process built-upon the solid-oxide electrochemical technology with reduced energy consumption and low costs for CO₂ separation & sequestration.  In this talk, the hydrogen production process and the development of the electrochemical device will be discussed in detail.  Proof-of-concept demonstration of hydrogen production at a 200W stack level will also be presented.