Hydrogen production from natural gas and biomethane with carbon capture and storage - A techno-environmental analysis

• Published in: Sustainable energy & fuels Vol. 4; no. 6; pp. 2967 - 2986
• Main Authors: Antonini, Cristina, Treyer, Karin, Streb, Anne, van der Spek, Mijndert, Bauer, Christian, Mazzotti, Marco
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Royal Society of Chemistry 02.06.2020
• Subjects: Biogas; Carbon; Carbon dioxide; Carbon sequestration; Climate change; Configurations; Electrolysis; Emissions; Energy consumption; Environmental assessment; Environmental impact; Fertilizers; Global warming; Greenhouse effect; Greenhouse gases; Hydrogen; Hydrogen production; ISO standards; Life cycle analysis; Life cycle assessment; Life cycles; Natural gas; Pressure swing adsorption; Reforming; Steam; Synthesis gas; Vacuum
• ISSN: 2398-4902; 2398-4902
• DOI: 10.1039/d0se00222d

This study presents an integrated techno-environmental assessment of hydrogen production from natural gas and biomethane, combined with CO 2 capture and storage (CCS). We have included steam methane reforming (SMR) and autothermal reforming (ATR) for syngas production. CO 2 is captured from the syngas with a novel vacuum pressure swing adsorption (VPSA) process, that combines hydrogen purification and CO 2 separation in one cycle. As comparison, we have included cases with conventional amine-based technology. We have extended standard attributional Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) following ISO standards with a detailed carbon balance of the biogas production process ( via digestion) and its by-products. The results show that the life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) performance of the VPSA and amine-based CO 2 capture technologies is very similar as a result of comparable energy consumption. The configuration with the highest plant-wide CO 2 capture rate (almost 100% of produced CO 2 captured) is autothermal reforming with a two-stage water-gas shift and VPSA CO 2 capture - because the latter has an inherently high CO 2 capture rate of 98% or more for the investigated syngas. Depending on the configuration, the addition of CCS to natural gas reforming-based hydrogen production reduces its life-cycle Global Warming Potential by 45-85 percent, while the other environmental life-cycle impacts slightly increase. This brings natural gas-based hydrogen on par with renewable electricity-based hydrogen regarding impacts on climate change. When biomethane is used instead of natural gas, our study shows potential for net negative greenhouse gas emissions, i.e. the net removal of CO 2 over the life cycle of biowaste-based hydrogen production. In the special case where the biogas digestate is used as agricultural fertiliser, and where a substantial amount of the carbon in the digestate remains in the soil, the biowaste-based hydrogen reaches net-negative life cycle greenhouse gas emissions even without the application of CCS. Addition of CCS to biomethane-based hydrogen production leads to net-negative emissions in all investigated cases. We quantify the technical and environmental performance of clean hydrogen production (with CCS) by linking detailed process simulation with LCA.