Hydrogen Refinery Ltd (H2R), established in 2021, is registered in England no. 13433617 and is commercialising the Plasma Electrolyser System (PES) that produces pure hydrogen or synthesis gas (syngas) from waste. Waste is removed from the environment without the emissions of landfill or incineration, so when the hydrogen or syngas is used to make fuels or fertiliser the entire process is carbon negative.
H2R is a deep-tech Knowledge Intensive Company (KIC) bringing to market the first of a kind or FOAK patent protected Plasma Electrolysis System (PES) that has been under development by the British military since 2003. Hydrogen Refinery is a circular economy waste-to-product business using Best Available Technology (BAT) for hydrogen and syngas production.
For the last 100 years, the world has relied on low-cost energy from fossil fuels. But, this has to change to meet Net Zero by 2050 and for energy security.
Hydrogen Refinery is committed to providing the low-cost energy we need for the next 100 years.
Highly scalable
PES is highly scalable from 1 tonne per day to millions of tonnes per annum. Oil refineries are huge industrial complexes located near to where the oil wells are found or where the crude oil is imported. Supertankers bulk ship the crude oil or refined petroleum products multi-nationally.
As the world moves away from fossil fuels and adopts new energies fuels, new supply chains must be established.
Every country in the world produces waste, so instead of the cost and emissions created by bulk shipping the goal is to build smaller regional ‘Hydrogen Refineries’ that can process the waste and make the new energies fuels needed locally.
PES systems are modular skid-mounted modules that are put together to make scaled systems. The system are designed to be run continuously and feature a ‘hot-swop’ capability to allow components to be exchanged for maintenance and repair.
Carbon negative and CCUS
The PES process is carbon negative because it avoids the methane and carbon emissions associated with the conventional waste processing methods of incineration and landfill. PES can either operate with waste or natural gas, methane, bio-methane, biogas, renewable natural gas (RNG) or flare gas. Greenhouse gases (GHG) such as carbon dioxide and methane can be removed from the environment converting them either to syngas or a solid carbon used in new products like vehicle tyres and construction facilitating carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS).
Industrial processes that emit vast quantities of GHG such as conventional ammonia production using Haber-Bosch and Steam Methane Reforming (SMR) can retrofit PES to produce blue and green hydrogen and ammonia. PES could also be retrofitted to waste incinerators and energy-from-waste EfW) so they become zero emission plants.
How does a Hydrogen Refinery work ?
An oil refinery works by processing crude oil into a range of petroleum-based products such as gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel, lubricants, naphtha for plastics and so on. If we are to replace oil, we need a solution to provide all of these products.
A ‘Hydrogen Refinery’ works by using a Plasma Electrolysis System (PES) to break down hydrocarbon wastes such as non-recyclable plastics, industrial wastes or even municipal solid waste (MSW) into hydrogen or syngas. Syngas is a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide.
The PES system uses a plasma to break down the chemical species in the waste. As PES does not require a catalyst a mixed and variable waste stream can be used without pre-sorting or washing the waste. The outputs from the PES system are either pure hydrogen or syngas.
How do we make money ?
There is little doubt that new e-fuels and e-fertilizers will play a significant part in the world’s net zero future. But to do so, they must be produced sustainably and at a competitive price. At the heart of the system is the production of hydrogen within the IEA target of $1 to $2 per kg. The hydrogen can be used directly, or combined with nitrogen to make ammonia (NH3), or combined with carbon monoxide (CO) to make syngas that is then used to make methanol or dimethyl ether, or synthetic fuels such as, synthetic marine diesel (SMD) and synthetic aviation fuel (SAF).
In addition to selling these fuels, Hydrogen Refinery will also make money from the gate fees for processing the waste and from the industrial chemicals and minerals extracted from the waste.
There are no gaseous greenhouse gas GHG emissions from the process.
All the carbon and other chemical species in the waste are captured in a solid carbon residue or soot that can be used as a residue to make green cement or as a precursor for carbon black to make new vehicle tires. Effectively this is carbon capture utilization and storage CCUS. The carbon soot is an ideal replacement to coal ash used to make aggregates or bitumen.
Waste
Currently waste processing involves either landfill or incineration, both create high levels of emissions. Typically, waste incinerators or energy-from-waste (EfW) plants produce 1 tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) for every 1 tonne of waste that they process. Swapping to the H2R process would save that 1 tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent for each tonne of waste that is processed.
According to the World Bank, the management of waste contributes 4% of global climate emissions. Despite efforts towards recycling, recycling rates remain low, with only 9% of plastics recycled worldwide. Global waste will grow from 2.59 billion tonnes (b/t) in 2023 to 3.40 b/t by 2050. The two main methods to remove waste from the environment are landfill or incineration. Both create significant emissions, and electricity produced in energy-from-waste plants is the most carbon emitting form of electricity generation after coal.
Wastes also contain valuable material, in the case of plastics there are large amounts of hydrogen and carbon. Given the emerging hydrogen economy waste plastics offer a source of green hydrogen. The Hydrogen Refinery technology will remove wastes from the environment without any of the associated emissions while also harvesting the hydrogen.
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