What's new in production
Hydrogen continues to be a focus of attention in the green energy picture, given its ability to power fuel cell vehicles with zero emissions and at potentially high efficiency. There are also a variety of hydrogen fuel cell applications.
Hydrogen’s many uses. Additionally, hydrogen has many industrial uses. However, the largest consumption of hydrogen is in crude oil refining, in hydrogenation and sulfur-reducing processes. The use of hydrogen in the production of liquid transport fuels, for example, is increasing. That can, in turn, further elevate the importance of heavy oil, a key refinery source for transport fuels, and which is cheaper to refineries than higher-quality crudes. Hydrogen can also be combined with CO2 to make methanol or dimethyl ether (DME), alternatives to diesel fuels. Perhaps that can even serve as a future utilization of CO2 produced from oil and gas operations.
With all of its uses and applications, demand for hydrogen is rising rapidly. But help for hydrogen production and help from hydrogen in the oil field are both needed. They need not be in conflict.
Production of hydrogen. Most hydrogen today is made by steam-methane reforming (SMR). But the process emits CO2. There are a host of presumably “greener” processes to produce hydrogen, but at different degrees of development, scale, and cost. One specific to the oil field, and the subject of research led by the University of Calgary, is extraction of hydrogen gas from heavy oil deposits. The application is new, but the technology is old. The application is in situ combustion, historically used to generate heat in the reservoir, to reduce the viscosity of heavy oil, mobilizing it for production.
With this “new” case, as with the “old” case, oxygen-rich air is injected into heavy oil reservoirs, resulting in a series of oxidation reactions that generate the heat. In the present application, solid carbon oxide compounds are left in the reservoir with hydrogen gas produced and collected at the surface. Heavy oil deposits, such as in Canada and Venezuela, alone, are enormous and, theoretically, could provide substantial amounts of hydrogen to meet increasing demand.
A new method. Another more broadly applicable development that could help hydrogen production and help the oil field comes from H2 Industries. They apply methane pyrolysis to produce hydrogen from flare gas. The by-product is solid carbon black, which can be stored, sold and shipped in large container tanks to end-users. There are many industrial uses of carbon black, primarily in strengthening rubber materials, such as tires. It is also used in various materials to improve properties, including viscosity, conductivity, UV protection, and static charge control.
In the meantime, the rapidly growing demand for hydrogen favors low-cost, scalable technologies. Regarding refineries, industrial gas producers make sense as hydrogen suppliers. And as it happens, there is a growth in the supply of hydrogen used at refineries from industrial gas producers relative to on-site production of hydrogen from refinery processes, themselves. In addition, industrial gas producers are able to take advantage of an expanding network of hydrogen gas pipelines, to reliably distribute hydrogen to their customers.
Pipeline issues. However, industrial gas producers presently use SMR to generate hydrogen. Besides the issue with CO2 emissions, SMR is also expensive. In addition, transport via hydrogen gas pipelines, while expanding, is limited. There are ~1,600 miles of hydrogen pipelines in the U.S., mostly near refineries in the Gulf Coast region. But the high capital costs to construct new pipelines greatly challenge expansion. Pipelines designed for hydrogen gas transport must be fabricated with non-steel materials that are not subject to hydrogen embrittlement and hydrogen permeation and leaks that can occur in standard steel pipelines.
With standard gas pipelines, hydrogen can be safely transported in blends with natural gas, but generally not above 6% by volume in practice. To expand transport of greater volumes of hydrogen in existing natural gas pipelines, they would have to be inexpensively modified internally. A larger network of existing pipelines that could transport hydrogen in greater concentration when blended with natural gas would be economically beneficial for present and future hydrogen uses, including those related to oil and gas production and refining.
A nanocomposite coating. Fortunately, for pipeline transport of hydrogen, help is on the way from Oceanit. In partnership with Hawaii Gas, Oceanit has developed HydroPel, a nanocomposite coating that can be applied to existing pipelines to safely accommodate up to 15% hydrogen in blends with natural gas. HydroPel creates a barrier on the pipe interior to block hydrogen penetration, minimizing diffusion into the metal, and preventing embrittlement failure. The technology was developed with U.S. Department of Energy support and will be piloted in ~1,100 miles of Hawaii Gas pipeline. The coating is also ultra-slick and non-wetting to any flowing phase, which reduces drag, thereby reducing the energy cost to compress and transport the gas blend.
Development and implementation of new technologies to help produce and transport more hydrogen economically, and also help progress to greener oilfield operations and cleaner refined transport fuel products, are not simple. They face many obstacles along the road to the future. But efforts from the University of Calgary, H2 Industries, and Oceanit, among many others, are steps in the right direction. WO
