Decarbonisati n

Decarbonisation Technology - November 2022

Technology
Powering the Transition to Sustainable Fuels & Energy
November 2022
Powering the Transition to Sustainable Fuels & Energy

CARBON CAPTURE
EU SAF DEMAND IS VITAL
CARBON INTENSITY WASTE - AS
OF HYDROGEN
1
FEEDSTOCK
 ACCELERATING
DECARBONISATION
TOGETHER
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 Contents November 2022

5 RefuelEU regulation will drive demand for SAF in Europe

Robin Nelson Consulting Editor

11 If hydrogen is the answer to energy security, let’s talk carbon, not colour
Maurits van Tol CTO, Johnson Matthey

15 Why blue hydrogen provides a de-risked decarbonisation lever

Mario Graca Shell Catalysts & Technologies

23 Carbon capture, utilisation and storage in the energy transition

Mike Hemsley Energy Transitions Commission

31 DMX CO2 capture technology: an industrial demonstration

Christian Streicher Axens

37 Near- and long-term options for decarbonising steel production

Joachim von Schéele Linde

45 The heat-pump way to more sustainability

Rasmus Rubycz Atlas Copco Gas and Process

53 Creating value from wastes to help achieve net zero

Mark Whittle Greenergy

57 Conversion to a green refinery

Scott Sayles and Robert Ohmes Becht

67 Roadmap to decarbonisation
Henrik Larsen KBR

71 Artificial intelligence drives the way to net zero

Aaron Yeardley Tunley Engineering

75 Process gas analyser for measuring hydrogen concentration

Airat Amerov and Michael Gaura AMETEK Process Instruments

Le
81 Decarbonising fired process heaters with zero-emission electric heat
James Lewis Chromalox

www.decarbonisationtechnology.com 1

contents and intro.indd 1 20/10/2022 12:21:03

 Where energies make tomorrow

Inspiring
a cleaner
future
©HafslundOsloCelsio

Technip Energies is a leading engineering and technology company for the energy transition.
Leveraging a 50-year track record, we support a more sustainable world by driving the
decarbonization of the industry with best-in-class technologies, proven experience and
ground-breaking CO2 management strategies. With continuous advancements, we offer our
clients competitive and at-scale carbon capture solutions to derisk investment and enhance
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At Technip Energies, we inspire a cleaner tomorrow by reducing carbon emissions today.

technipenergies.com

technip.indd 1 27/07/2022 15:15:00

 A lot can happen in a year. Early in 2022, the relaxation in
Managing Editor Covid restrictions led to a surge in energy demand, then
Rachel Storry the invasion of Ukraine created a restriction in supply,
rachel.storry@emap.com the combination of which led to increased energy bills for
tel +44 (0)7786 136440 consumers. The short-term economic outlook is gloomy, with
a general rise in the cost of living and a re-emergence of
Consulting Editor inflation accompanied by higher interest rates. The war also
Robin Nelson emphasised our ongoing dependence on fossil energy sources.
robin.nelson@ The social and economic impact of climate change is ever
decarbonisationtechnology.com more clear, with record summer temperatures, drought, and
wildfires throughout much of Europe, the overwhelming
Graphics floods from abnormal monsoons in Pakistan, and annual,
Peter Harper severe storms in the US.
Billions have been invested in renewable energy sources
US Operations and infrastructure, but it is clear that a fundamental change to
Mark Peters the global energy system will require further trillions over the
mark.peters@emap.com next 25 years. The current economic environment emphasises
tel +1 832 656 5341 the need for a managed and progressive transition which
balances the switch to renewables with energy security and
Business Development Director affordability. Regulatory drivers need to balance ambition
Paul Mason with realism. In this edition, there is a preview of the demand
info@decarbonisationtechnology.com that will ensue from the forthcoming ReFuelEU regulation
tel +44 844 5888 771 for sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) within Europe. While the
details will emerge from the current Trialogue negotiations
Managing Director between the EU Commission, Parliament, and the Council of
Richard Watts Europe, the direction is already clear. This regulation, as part
richard.watts@emap.com of the ‘Fit for 55’ package, will drive the development and
commercial scale-up of biofuels and e-fuels in Europe.
In this issue, Johnson Matthey argues the case for
EMAP, 10th Floor technology-agnostic, low-carbon hydrogen standards,
Southern House allowing the selection of the optimum solution for specific
Wellesley Grove, situations. In a similar vein, Shell discusses the need for both
Croydon CR0 1XG green and blue to meet the increasing demand for hydrogen.
The Energy Transition Commission introduces its new report
on the role of CCUS in the energy transition, touching on the
importance of CO₂ removals from the atmosphere as well as
the decarbonisation of industrial sectors that are otherwise
difficult to decarbonise.
Linde outlines development in the decarbonisation of steel
production. The high temperatures required rule out full
electrification, creating a strong case for hydrogen. While
blue hydrogen currently has a cost advantage over green
hydrogen, gasification of waste streams, such as municipal
solid waste to produce syngas, could be even more cost
competitive. There is increasing interest in the refining
industry in waste as a feedstock. Greenergy’s Green Tyre
Technology Project, which converts waste tyres into transport
fuels, is a clear example of rethinking the energy system.
Becht outlines different phases in the transition to a green
refinery. Energy efficiency remains one of the most cost-
Cover Story effective options, as illustrated in the article on heat pumps to
Twilight refinery recover and reuse waste energy from current processes.

www.decarbonisationtechnology.com 3

contents and intro.indd 3 21/10/2022 16:05:07

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topsoe.indd 1 28/07/2022 10:22:34

 RefuelEU regulation will drive
demand for SAF in Europe
RefuelEU is the first step on the long road to decarbonise aviation and will have
a significant impact on the evolution of demand for SAF in Europe

Robin Nelson
Consulting Editor

T
he European Union’s ReFuelEU
regulation is planned to come into effect
from 1 January 2023, following the Biojet
E-kerosene
Trialogue negotiations between the three EU 28%
Institutions (EU Commission, Parliament and
the Council of European Union) which started in 11%
8%
September 2022. 0% e-kero
European aviation fuel suppliers will have 2% biojet
5%
24%
27%
35%

two years to prepare, then from 2025 will 0.70%

5%
15%

be required to blend a minimum volume
percentage of SAF in the aviation fuel supply.
The mandated levels increase in steps every
five years and include separate targets for
the share of sustainable biofuels (biojet) and
synthetic aviation fuels (e-kerosene) (see
Figure 1).
Biofuel components must meet the
sustainability and greenhouse gas emissions
criteria in the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive
(RED-II) and be certified in accordance with the
directive (European Commission, 2022).
Although the EU Parliament proposed
more ambitious targets for e-kerosene, the
Council of Europe support the Commissions
proposed targets, as shown in Figure 1, and
subject to the Trialogue negotiations. These
negotiations will also align on the feedstocks
allowed for biojet and for e-kerosene.
The ReFuelEU regulation is considered
an important regulatory stimulus for the
ongoing development and commercial scale-
up of technologies to produce sustainable
aviation fuels.
Scandinavian countries have set autonomous
targets, mandating a minimum volume of SAF of
5% by 2025 and 30% by 2030 in their aviation
fuel supply.
2025 2030 2035 2040 2045 2050
Figure 1 Minimum shares for biojet and
e-kerosene in aviation blends under ReFuelEU
European aviation kerosene demand in 2019,
before the Covid-19 pandemic.
The European Commission’s impact
assessment for the RefuelEU regulation
shows jet fuel demand for the EU-27 growing
from 38 million tonnes (Mt) in 2010 (EU-27)
to 50 Mt by 2050 in the base case scenarios
(European Commission, 2021). This compares
with 2019 actual demand in the EU-27 at 46
Mt (39.5 Mt international, 6.5 Mt domestic)
(Eurostat, 2022a), (Eurostat, 2022b). Including
UK demand at 12 Mt and Norway at 0.9 Mt
results in a total European jet fuel demand of
59 Mt in 2019 (see Figure 2).
Impact of Covid-19 on aviation fuel
demand in 2020-21
The dramatic curtailment in air travel during
the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in a 55% fall
in demand for aviation fuel in the EU-27 in
2020 (see Figure 2). In turn, the lower demand
resulted in a zero to negative jet-fuel margin for
most of 2020 into 2021. The International Air

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 mid, high and low scenarios (ICAO, 2021), are
50.00
45.25 45.93 EU-27
summarised in Table 1.
40.00 UK
Norway
30.00 25.40
IEA Energy Scenarios
20.00
12.23 12.37 20.33
The IEA lays out pathways for global aviation
10.00 4.97
0.88 0.85 0.34
4.68
0.33 that are consistent either with its Sustainable
0
2018 2019 2020 2021 Development Scenario, which aims to limit the
increase in average temperature to 1.8ºC, or its
Figure 2 2019-21 demand collapse due to more recent Net Zero Emissions (NZE) Scenario,
Covid-19 travel restrictions which limits the increase in average temperature
Data sources: (Eurostat, 2022a), (Eurostat, 2022b), (ONSS, 2022) to 1.5ºC (IEA, 2021).

Transport Association (IATA) reported global Fuel efficiency improvements

passenger traffic had started to recover to
40% of 2019 levels in 2021 and 61% in 2022
(IATA, 2022a).
Global demand for air cargo or freight was
more robust during this period, with demand in
2022 expected to be 13% above 2019 levels
(IATA, 2021). The Air Transport Action Group
(ATAG), in its Waypoint 2050 study, estimates
air traffic demand globally is not likely to fully
recover to 2019 levels until 2024 (ATAG, 2020).
European air traffic in the first six months of
2022 had recovered to nearly 80% compared
with the same period in 2019 (IATA, 2022a),
(IATA, 2022b).
We are living in a time when the risks of
disruptions such as the Covid-19 pandemic,
worsening impacts of climate change,
prolongation or escalation of conflicts, and
economic recession are all too real. While
scenarios can help, any exploration of future
demand over a 25-year duration should include
a note of caution.
ICAO aviation growth scenarios
The International Civil Aviation Organisation
(ICAO) has published three scenarios looking at
growth in passenger and freight traffic, post-
Covid-19, with projections towards 2050. The
growth forecasts for Europe, within the ICAO
The ICAO scenarios look at growth in air traffic
using passenger and freight volumes. Fuel
efficiency improvements can temper the impact
of traffic growth on fuel demand. In 2010 ICAO
adopted a goal for an average 2% annual fuel
efficiency improvement in international aviation.
The IEA notes that the aviation industry achieved
an average 2.4% fuel efficiency improvement
between 2000 and 2010, then 1.9% between
2010 and 2019 (IEA, 2022). ICAO considers
that the introduction of new aircraft with hybrid
engines, along with other efficiency-enhancing
features, could help achieve its target over the
next decades. In the near term, the economic pain
felt by the industry during the pandemic meant
that while fleet owners took older, less efficient
aircraft out of service, they also postponed
purchases of the latest and most efficient aircraft.
European scenarios for SAF demand
This section draws on three of the published
scenarios, the IEA NZE and SDS and the ICAO
High Growth Scenarios, to explore how demand
for SAF could evolve, should the levels proposed
by the Commission by adopted.
Whilst the analysis described in this article
is based on published scenarios, neither IEA
nor ICAO were approached to endorse the
subsequent analysis for Europe. To avoid

Europe Pre-Covid Post-Covid

ICAO Scenario Mid High Mid Low

Passenger (RPK) 3.0% 3.1% 2.7% 2.3%

Freight (FTK) 3.0% 2.4% 1.9% 1.5%

Table 1 ICAO traffic growth forecasts for Europe (Revenue Passenger-KM and Freight Tonne-KM)

6 www.decarbonisationtechnology.com

Nelson.indd 6 21/10/2022 10:05:08

 Scenario Air traffic Fuel efficiency Fuel demand change
demand growth gain

EU-27 NZE: Net Zero Emissions 1.8% 2.0% -0.2%

EU-27 SD: Sustainable Development 2.3% 1.9% 0.4%

EU-27 HG: High Growth 3.1% 1.9% 1.2%

Table 2 Average annual development in air traffic, fuel efficiency, and fuel demand

any misperception, the European scenarios
are identified as EU-27 NZE, EU-27 SD, and
EU-27 HG.
UK focus is on domestic aviation
As the UK is following an independent strategy
for aviation decarbonisation, UK figures are
excluded from this analysis of the impact of EU
regulation. The UK’s ‘Jet Zero’ strategy commits
to net-zero emissions in UK domestic aviation
by 2040 (UK Government, 2022), while the
ReFuelEU regulation includes international
departures from EU airports.
The average annual change in fuel demand
under the three scenarios in Table 2 was
used to explore the future demand for biojet
and e-kerosene determined by the ReFuelEU
mandate levels, assuming traffic demand in the
EU will have fully recovered by 2025.
In the EU-27 NZE scenario, the average annual
growth in aviation traffic in the EU is reduced to
1.8% a year.
Plausible changes in consumer behaviour that
would be consistent with this scenario include
a lower level of growth in business travel due to
the normalisation of video conferencing, mainly
for internal but also for a share of business-
to-business meetings. Additionally, the EU
and national governments could put in place
measures to encourage a shift away from short-
haul domestic travel to rail, such as more direct
city-to city rail links.
procedures, such as the use of electric tractors
for taxying on ground, also contribute. Hybrid
aircraft are introduced widely. Even though
alternative fuels such as electric and hydrogen
become viable for short-haul flights, they are
not deployed in sufficient numbers to have a
significant impact on overall demand by 2050.
Consequently, as shown in Figure 3, despite
a small growth in air traffic, overall demand for
aviation fuels in Europe declines over the period
2025 to 2050 by an average 0.2% per year.
Demand for SAF components grows from 1 to
16 Mt biojet and from zero to 13 Mt e-kerosene,
in compliance with the ReFuelEU mandated
levels. Conventional jet fuel declines to 17 Mt by
2050.
In the EU-27 SD scenario, overall aviation fuel
demand increases due to growth in aviation of
2.3% per year, while average annual energy
efficiency gains remain slightly under ICAO’s
target of 2% at 1.9%. Improvements in fuel
efficiency help offset the additional cost of SAF
over conventional jet fuels. Conventional jet
demand reduces to 22 Mt by 2050, with biojet
reaching 21 Mt and e-kerosene 16 Mt (see
Figure 4).
0 0.3
2
0.9 2.4 4 5
7
11
13
12
45 43
16

Other factors that may contribute to a reduced

36
31
28
rate of growth in passenger air traffic include a 17
protracted higher cost of energy, higher inflation,
and a consequential economic downturn. 2025 2030 2035 2040 2045 2050

Efficiency gains in aircraft and in-flight Conventional Biojet e-kerosene

management operations help realise the ICAO

target average annual gain in fuel efficiency of Figure 3 EU-27 NZE scenario: aviation fuel
2% over the duration. Normalisation of operating demand by type (million tonnes)

www.decarbonisationtechnology.com 7

Nelson.indd 7 21/10/2022 10:05:08

 Conventional Biojet e-kerosene Conventional Biojet e-kerosene

4 6
0.3 3 16
0 2.6 8 23
0.9 8
13 15 3 5
0.4 20
0 2.7 9 16
21 0.9 28
45 41
45
36 45 46 45
35 48 44
22 30

2025 2030 2035 2040 2045 2050 2025 2030 2035 2040 2045 2050

Figure 4 EU-27 SD scenario: aviation fuel Figure 5 EU-27 HG scenario: aviation fuel
demand by type (million tonnes) demand by type (million tonnes)

The EU-27 HG scenario suggests a full produced from EU domestic feedstocks of

recovery in average growth rates for European
aviation passenger traffic to pre-Covid levels
(see Figure 5). The cost of energy falls from the
highs of 2022-3, in turn reducing the depth and
duration of the economic recession. Progress
with decarbonisation of the aviation industry,
including the transition to SAF, attracts more
domestic, regional, and international air travel.
Consequential aviation fuel demand grows
by 1.2% a year, although conventional jet fuel
declines to 30 Mt by 2050.
All three scenarios assume rapid scale-up and
commercialisation of both biojet, and e-kerosene
capacity, which is the rationale behind the
ReFuelEU regulation. The EU-27 HG scenario
requires that 16 Mt of biojet will be available
in the EU by 2040 and, similarly by 2045
e-kerosene supply would need to reach 8 MT.
Supply challenges
Globally, in 2021 SAF production volumes were
less than 0.5% of total jet fuel demand (IEA
Bioenergy, 2021). The challenges regarding
biojet supply are threefold: feedstock availability,
production capacity, and economics.
Table 3 summarises the findings of a study
on the potential overall availability of biomass
agricultural, forest, and waste origin, which
meet the sustainability criteria as defined in
the Renewable Energy Directive II (European
Commission, 2022). The ranges given in Table
3 reflect the scenarios used in their study to
explore different levels of biomass mobilisation
within the EU (Imperial College London, 2021).
Biofuel production technologies are not
specific to a given fuel, producing gasoline,
kerosene, and diesel range molecules. The
percentage of the jet fraction with the total
liquid varies for each technology, while process
conditions can be adjusted to increase the yield
of jet or diesel. IEA Bioenergy points out that the
ratio of jet to diesel will be influenced by market
demand and economics as well as policy (IEA
Bioenergy, 2021).
For the HEFA (hydrotreated esters and
fatty acids) route, when the objectives are
co-production of both biojet and biodiesel,
approximately 15% of the total biofuels could be
biojet. Where the objective is to maximise biojet,
the selectivity could increase to nearly 55%
biojet at the expense of biodiesel (see Figure 5
in the IEA bioenergy report).
Applying a 15% selectivity to biojet for the
estimated levels of biofuels for transport from

Biomass availability (Mtoe) 2030 2050

All markets (energy and non-energy) 392-498 408-533

Bioenergy 208-344 215-366

Biofuel for transport 46-97 71-176

Table 3 Potential availability of sustainable biomass for biofuels production in the EU (Imperial College
London, 2021)

8 www.decarbonisationtechnology.com

Nelson.indd 8 21/10/2022 10:05:09

the Imperial College report gives 7-15 Mt
(2030) and 11-28 Mt (2050) biojet, which Offsetting (CORSIA)
and carbon capture
would be sufficient to meet the projected 19%
demand in the EU-27 HG scenario shown in
Infrastructure and
Figure 5. If the 2050 target of 85% SAF, as operational
proposed by the EU Parliament, were to be efficiencies
3%
adopted, 28 Mt of biojet would be needed.
Of course, potential availability is different
from practical availability. The Imperial College New aviation
technologies
Sustainable
aviation
study also discusses measures needed to 13%
fuel (SAF)
realise the potential availability of biofuels. Such 65%

measures include:
• Policy support to create a positive investment
environment
• Research and development to improve
biomass conversion efficiency and selectivity to
different biofuel products
• Development of new supply chains to manage
biomass collection, pretreatment, and logistics
• Partnerships across different industries
and with governments to mobilise resources
required
The synthesis of e-fuels requires
renewable hydrogen, produced from the
electrolysis of water using electricity from
renewable sources (wind, solar). The hydrogen
is combined with carbon from carbon dioxide
captured from industrial flues, the atmosphere,
and oceans.
Globally, the production of e-fuels is nascent.
The eFuel Alliance lists 14 current or planned
Figure 6 IATA’s Fly Net Zero by 2050 Strategy is
contingent on the supply of SAF
e-fuel plants, of which eight are in Europe (eFuel
Alliance, 2022). The majority of announced
projects are at demonstration scale, with a
Technical Readiness Level of TRL 7. The next
two decades will be critical in the development
and deployment of commercial-scale e-fuels.
Figure 6 shows that the IATA Fly Net Zero
strategy relies on the build-up of global
SAF capacity for 65% of the total emissions
reductions in aviation transport by 2050.
VIEW REFERENCES
Robin Nelson
robin.nelson@decarbonisationtechnology.com

www.decarbonisationtechnology.com 9
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 If hydrogen is the answer to energy
security, let’s talk carbon, not colour
We are on the brink of a clean-hydrogen revolution, but we need a change of
language and the development of a global clean hydrogen market
Maurits van Tol
CTO, Johnson Matthey
T
he simplest and most abundant element
in the universe is key to tackling Earth’s
most challenging problem – climate
change. It is an oft-repeated joke that ‘hydrogen
is the fuel of the future, and always will be’, but
its time really has come at last. Soon we will
see hydrogen working alongside other green
technologies – cutting carbon emissions and
helping to achieve net zero.
Hydrogen can help decarbonise activities that
electrification cannot. Think shipping, HGV trucks
and buses, and industrial processes that need
very high temperatures, such as steelmaking. We
cannot reach net zero without it.
The hydrogen colour naming
convention has now run its course.
It has been an engaging and
memorable way to classify what
is, ironically, a colourless gas, but
what is needed now is a more
nuanced approach
Technological advances in this field are
everywhere. Johnson Matthey’s HyCOgen
process, for example, uses clean hydrogen and
atmospheric or waste CO₂ to produce syngas,
which can be upgraded into sustainable aviation
fuel, for example, and dropped into existing
supplies (Johnson Matthey, 2022a).
As a fuel, hydrogen leaves behind only water,
and none of the CO₂ or pollutants associated
with fossil fuels. But before we can really declare
this to be a clean-energy vector, we need to
consider the carbon footprint associated with
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
DT6 Johnson Matthey.indd 11
its production, and it is here that things start to
get complicated.
Front-runners
Right now, most hydrogen is made by reforming
natural gas – a process that creates so-called
‘grey hydrogen’. But this process also yields
CO₂, making it ripe for replacement.
We will rely on two technologies in the future:
the first is ‘blue hydrogen’ – created in the
same way as grey, but with the troublesome
CO₂ captured and stored. Second, there is
green hydrogen, produced by the electrolysis of
water using electricity from renewable sources,
such as wind or solar.
There is a rainbow of colours, too, including
pink (nuclear), turquoise (methane pyrolysis),
and even white (naturally occurring and mined
from rock).
However, I believe the hydrogen colour
naming convention does not tell the full story.
Though an engaging and memorable way to
classify what is, ironically, a colourless gas, what
is needed now is a more nuanced approach to
hydrogen nomenclature.
Let’s talk carbon
It is more appropriate to talk about the carbon
intensity of hydrogen. The ease of the colour-
naming convention tends to invite simplistic
comparisons of hydrogen production routes.
For instance, it is common to see arguments
favouring green hydrogen (electrolysis from
renewable electricity) over blue hydrogen
(natural gas + CCS) because the blue variant
still produces CO₂ and uses a fossil fuel
(natural gas) as a feedstock, and dealing
11
19/10/2022 14:43:59
 with this is both expensive and has a carbon
footprint all of its own.
However, this argument fails to acknowledge
the ease with which existing grey hydrogen
plants can be retrofitted with CCS to make
them blue – a process that has a much
smaller carbon footprint than building a green
hydrogen plant from scratch. For instance, JM’s
suite of CLEANPACE technologies enables
the revamp of steam methane reformers with
existing, proven technology to achieve CO₂
emission reductions of up to 95% (Johnson
Matthey, 2022b).
Such retrofitted blue hydrogen plants have
an important role to play in expanding the
hydrogen market in which new blue hydrogen
plants, and green hydrogen electrolysis
facilities, can then thrive.
The colour naming convention also fails to
take into account the technology variations
within these categories. As analysis by the
Hydrogen Council shows, the greenhouse gas
emissions associated with green hydrogen
production depend on how the electricity was
generated (Hydrogen Council, 2021).
Similarly, a blue hydrogen analysis by UK
government department BEIS highlights the
impact of the reforming method on lifecycle
emissions, with autothermal reformers (ATR)
being more efficient and more compatible with
CCS than steam methane reforming (SMR).
12
DT6 Johnson Matthey.indd 12
Though, it is also worth noting that half of
the hydrogen produced through SMR actually
comes from the water used, not the methane
(UK Gov BEIS, 2021).
At JM, our own LCH technology captures
more than 95% of associated CO₂ emissions,
and has excellent environmental credentials
for ATR blue hydrogen production (Johnson
Matthey, 2022c).
Blue hydrogen is often looked on as an
intermediate technology – something to tide us
over until green hydrogen electrolysis plants are
ready to take over. We don’t see things this way.
Complementary solutions
Rather than two opponents – one in the blue
corner, the other in the green corner, slugging it
out for supremacy – we see blue hydrogen and
green hydrogen as being pieces of the same
jigsaw. In the future, we will need both methods,
working together to diversify supply and boost
energy security.
Diversity is important to insulate the market
from price fluctuations. Both of these hydrogen
generation methods have dependencies: CCS
network capacity and natural gas prices in the
case of blue hydrogen; and the availability and
price of low-carbon electricity for green.
Other factors to consider are speed and
scale: blue hydrogen is ready to go now; green
hydrogen will need until about 2030. At JM,
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
19/10/2022 14:44:00
 we believe every molecule of CO₂ entering the
atmosphere is a problem – and something that
blue hydrogen can help prevent in the short
and medium term.
Blue hydrogen’s potential to ‘move the needle’
quickly can be seen in the HyNet clean hydrogen
project in the North West of the UK, which has
adopted JM’s LCH technology. When this comes
on-stream in 2025, production capacity will be
3 TWh, with the potential to scale to 30 TWh
by 2030. In contrast, Shell Rotterdam – reported
to be Europe’s biggest renewable electrolytic
hydrogen production facility – will produce
about 1 TWh when it comes on stream in 2025
(HyNet North West, 2022).
The suitability of hydrogen production methods
will also change according to location. Newly
built blue hydrogen plants will often be more
attractive to countries that have reserves of
natural gas and the geological formations to deal
with the captured CO₂. The HyNet project in the
UK is a great example.
On the other hand, green hydrogen will suit
territories that have an abundance of renewable
electricity. For example, in NEOM – Saudi Arabia’s
futuristic city under construction – the country’s
bountiful solar and wind resources will help
produce 1.2 million tonnes of green hydrogen
every year by 2026 (NEOM, 2022).
And in California, approximately 1 TWh of
solar electricity is wasted every year because an
outdated electricity grid cannot take it. That is
an amount of energy equivalent to four nuclear
reactors, all of which could be stored in the form
of green hydrogen – or converted into a high-
density energy carrier such as ammonia.
Language matters
For us to move away from colours and
concentrate on carbon footprint, we will need to
change our language around hydrogen. Defining
and implementing proper low-carbon hydrogen
standards is essential if all stakeholders are to
know what ‘clean hydrogen’ actually means.
Grouping hydrogen production by carbon
intensity and not colour – as the US has proposed
in its Inflation Reduction Act – gives clarity and
freedom to project developers when choosing
technology and seeking funding.
To achieve a low-carbon hydrogen economy,
we are calling for technologically agnostic
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
DT6 Johnson Matthey.indd 13
standards to be adopted as soon as possible.
These should be global, or at least regionally
aligned, to facilitate a worldwide market for
clean hydrogen – something that would blur the
distinction between colours even more.
But where there are standards, there
also needs to be regulation, and important
questions need to be addressed here.
Implementation and adoption are key, but who
will regulate, incentivise, and direct the use
of these standards? Will it be left to national
governments or an international agency?
Numerous low-carbon hydrogen standards
are already in development. While we are happy
to work within any framework, we want to
see the inclusion of upstream emissions (such
as fugitive methane emissions and escaping
CO₂). To this end, the most sensible approach
seems to be a standard that covers well-to-gate
emissions associated with hydrogen production.
Defining and implementing proper
low-carbon hydrogen standards
is essential if all stakeholders are
to know what ‘clean hydrogen’
actually means
Having a global infrastructure standard for pipe
and fittings would also help reduce the cost of
introducing hydrogen to the world.
To achieve net zero by 2050, the world has to
increase the amount of hydrogen it is producing
by a factor of 10.
Just as there is no magic bullet for providing the
world’s green energy needs, there is no one-size-
fits-all approach to clean hydrogen production.
We need a diverse network of suppliers around
the world, each using the right method for them.
Our language – and our preconceptions about
existing technologies – must change and we
need to find new ways of measuring carbon
intensity. It is an incredibly exciting time to be
involved with hydrogen – and at JM we are proud
to be at the heart of it.
VIEW REFERENCES
Maurits van Tol
Maurits.vanTol@matthey.com
13
19/10/2022 14:44:01
watlow.indd 1 19/10/2022 13:16:24
 Why blue hydrogen provides a
de-risked decarbonisation lever
A deep-dive into blue hydrogen’s important role in achieving net zero by 2050
Mario Graca
Shell Catalysts & Technologies
T
he imperative for lower-carbon energy
systems is highly perceptible now, as
an increasingly large group of countries
announce their intention to become carbon
neutral by 2050. Globally, the pool of countries
with aspirational targets that are set out in
climate law, or as statements of intent or
submissions to the UN, accounts for about
80% of the world’s population. As we approach
2050, the world population is projected to
increase from its present 8 billion to 9.8
billion and energy demand will increase by
about one-third; yet, simultaneously, net global
carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions rates will need
to be halved.
With more and more countries setting out
their zero-carbon ambitions, momentum for
blue and green hydrogen production is growing.
The first half of 2021 saw a surge of activity in
hydrogen project investments. By mid-2021,
the Hydrogen Council reported a 60% increase
in announced clean hydrogen production
capacity, through to 2030, compared with a
similar projection made in 2020. Furthermore,
this was a 450% rise compared with the
figure at the end of 2019. By early 2022,
more than 500 major initiatives around the
world have been reported, with $160 billion of
industrial investment and $70 billion of pledged
public support.
Shell believes that both green and blue
hydrogen are needed to meet the demands
of the future hydrogen economy and help
develop its infrastructure. Green hydrogen
is the ideal long-term goal, but most green
hydrogen projects currently come with a high
cost. Further, the technology would require
significant scaling for green hydrogen to satisfy
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
DT6 Shell.indd 15
the majority of the projected hydrogen growth
in the coming decades. Although there is great
uncertainty on the relative growth of each, it is
clear that an extended hydrogen economy and
infrastructure is coming. Blue hydrogen has
a strong role to play in the energy transition
by helping to build a hydrogen market while
continuing to lower emissions.
Hydrogen projections
The demand for hydrogen is accelerating,
driven by stronger national-level government
commitments to decarbonise the energy sector
and by businesses with net-zero objectives
and ambitious sustainability targets. Today, the
International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates
that the demand for hydrogen is about 90 mtpa,
almost all of which is used for ammonia
production and refining. This figure is forecast
to reach about 200 mtpa by 2030 and more
than 500 mtpa by 2050. Other forecasts assess
hydrogen demand to vary between 150 mtpa
and 500 mtpa by 2050. The wide range seen
here is linked to the varying degrees of ambition
required to achieve temperature targets within
the various global warming scenarios. For
example, some analysts suggest that striving
to meet a Paris Agreement-aligned global
warming target of below 1.8°C, similar to Shell’s
Sky scenario, could result in a hydrogen demand
of 220-600 mtpa by 2050.
Meeting this demand will require an
unparalleled transformation in how hydrogen
is produced. Currently, most hydrogen is ‘grey’
and produced by converting natural gas into
hydrogen and unabated CO2, using mostly
the steam methane reforming (SMR) process.
However, this process is carbon intensive
15
20/10/2022 12:15:45
 cleaner hydrogen grows. And, although Europe
6
accounts for 80% of new projects, China is a
CO2 price
rapidly emerging market with more than 50
Production cost, $/kg hydrogen

5 Fuel cost
Operating expenditure announced projects. With these investments,
Capital expenditure
4 Sensitivity green and blue hydrogen production capacity
is set to exceed 10 mtpa by 2030. This is,
3 however, far below the demand forecast for
2030, which leaves a considerable need for
2
further projects and investments.
1
Why blue hydrogen has an important role
0 Blue hydrogen is similar to grey hydrogen
Green Grey Blue
hydrogen hydrogen hydrogen except that the CO₂ is captured and either
utilised or stored underground. Though the
amount of CO₂ captured varies according to the
Figure 1 Hydrogen production costs in 2030 project, blue hydrogen is widely regarded as
low carbon. Green hydrogen is mostly carbon
and is, according to the IEA, responsible for free and is seen as the ideal solution to satisfy
as much as 900 mtpa of CO₂ emissions. The future hydrogen demand. So, why do we need
energy industry cannot, therefore, just expand blue hydrogen?
current grey hydrogen production if it is serious The reality is that the current economics
about achieving deep decarbonisation. Instead, of green hydrogen are challenging when
it must rapidly transition to cleaner methods compared to blue hydrogen. Even by 2030, it
of hydrogen production, such as green and is likely that green hydrogen will be double the
blue hydrogen. cost of blue hydrogen (see Figure 1), though
A global investment of $500 billion has cost parity may be achieved by 2045. This will
already been committed to low-carbon (blue not be the case everywhere. In some regions,
and green) hydrogen projects through to particularly those with a high level of grid-
2030; this figure is set to rise as demand for connected renewable energy, green hydrogen

Lower methane slip Energy sufficiency Higher operating pressure

as SGP operates at high Produced steam satisfies Hydrogen compression duty and ADIP
reactor temperatures most internal users ULTRA CO2 capture efficiency are improved

Superheated steam To internal users (air separation unit,

Boiler feed Saturated steam CO2 removal unit, triethylene glycol
water dehydration and power generation)
Natural
gas Syngas ADIP ULTRA
SGP Water gas Hydrogen Hydrogen
and/or effluent CO2 removal
refinery reactor Hot shift Impure purification Hydrogen compression
cooler Cooled Shift unit Hydrogen
fuel gas syngas syngas effluent hydrogen product
product
Oxygen export
Medium-pressure CO2
Air
INTEGRATED SBHP CO2 compression
Air separation High-pressure CO2
unit and dehydration to storage
Low-pressure CO2

Feed flexibility: Non-catalytic Intermediate flash: High capture pressure

process means robustness against means most of the CO2 can be regenerated at a
feed contaminents (sulphur, olefins, C2+ ) medium pressure to minimise CO2 compressor size

Shell propriety technology Shell technology embedded Open source technology

Figure 2 The SBHP and the advantages of integration with other technologies

16 www.decarbonisationtechnology.com

DT6 Shell.indd 16 19/10/2022 14:48:10

 Cansolv
CO2 CO2
SMR
Large reference, but requires Steam Flue gas CO2
post-combustion CO2 capture
for >90% capture CH4 Feed gas CO2
SMR CO shift Purification H2
pretreatment capture
(Option)

Steam CO2
ATR
CH4 Feed gas CO2
Feed pretreatment ATR CO shift Purification H2
pretreatment capture
Steam for reaction
Fired heater Fired CO2 O2
heater emissions Air
Power ASU

HP steam CO2
SGP CH4 refinery
No or minimal feed pretreatment CO2
fuel gas SGP CO shift Purification H2
Steam production using waste heat capture
No direct CO2 emission from process O2
Air
Power ASU

Figure 3 Comparison of different blue hydrogen technologies

may already have the advantage. Where this is
not the case, blue hydrogen has a vital role to
play in the energy transition. Essentially, while
green hydrogen may be the better economic
option in some locations, blue has an advantage
in others and therefore both are needed in the
short and medium term.
Which type of blue hydrogen technology?
Blue hydrogen can be produced in different
ways, according to the technology used.
Until recently, project developers usually had
the choice of two established blue hydrogen
technologies: SMR or autothermal reforming
(ATR). Now, there is a third option; one with
the potential to provide superior cost and CO₂-
capture performance.
The Shell Blue Hydrogen Process (SBHP)
is a new way to produce blue hydrogen from
natural gas, or other hydrocarbon gases
(refinery off-gases), by integrating proven
technologies that can be deployed rapidly
(see Figure 2). The process is an oxygen-
based, non-catalytic system, whereby Shell’s
proven Shell Gas POx technology is utilised
to manufacture syngas. After the water-gas
shift reaction, CO₂ is removed with Shell ADIP
ULTRA technology to leave a hydrogen stream
for further purification. Shell Gas POx utilises
Shell’s proven Shell Gasification Process (SGP)
technology, based on gas partial oxidation,
which is a mature, cost-efficient, and de-risked
technology with a 70-year track record.
Established, de-risked technology
The SBHP development journey is interlinked
with the Shell Pernis refinery’s decarbonisation
journey. In 1998, SGP technology was at
the heart of Shell Pernis refinery’s residue
upgrading. With no sequestration available,
some CO₂ was vented to atmosphere, but Shell
While green hydrogen may be the
better economic option in some
locations, blue has an advantage in
others, so both are needed in the
short and medium term
also found uses for it, routing up to 1 mtpa to
greenhouses to accelerate crop growth.
Further development took place when the
Pearl GTL (gas-to-liquids) plant in Qatar came
on stream in 2011, with some 18 SGP trains,
each of which was able to convert natural gas
into syngas with an equivalent pure hydrogen
production capacity of 500 t/d.

www.decarbonisationtechnology.com 17

DT6 Shell.indd 17 19/10/2022 17:08:18

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19/10/2022 2:12 PM
 Shell began developing the gas-treating ADIP
technology in the 1950s. In 2020, the insights
and learning from over 500 ADIP references,
from Pernis and Pearl, were pieced together
and leveraged to develop a new integrated line-
up to produce hydrogen from any hydrocarbon
feedstock with CO₂ capture.
The Porthos project, which is the Netherlands’
first carbon capture and storage (CCS) venture
involving four companies, is a highly significant
development for Pernis. This is because it will
enable the gasifier’s CO₂ to be sequestered in
empty gas fields below the North Sea. After 20
years of producing pure CO₂ from residue feed,
Porthos provides the opportunity to store the
CO₂ in the ground, transforming the Pernis unit
into a type of blue hydrogen plant. As a result,
Pernis will reduce its CO₂ emissions by some
25%, and it will also enable the site to lower the
carbon intensity of its products.
When compared with conventional SMR and
ATR technologies (see Figure 3), the SBHP
has key advantages. First, for large-scale
projects (greater than 200 t/d), oxygen-based
systems such as the SBHP and ATR can have a
significant cost advantage over SMR systems.
Moreover, the SBHP provides a potential
levellised cost of hydrogen advantage: lower
than both SMR and ATR.
Second, the SBHP can produce the lowest
Pipeline Blue
gas hydrogen
SBHP Refining, Petchem, LNG
Fuel gas
Pipeline
gas
Natural gas
Pipeline
gas
SBHP Power
Pipeline
Steel Power
gas
SBHP
Blue hydrogen
Figure 4b How the SBHP integrates with the four project archetypes
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
DT6 Shell.indd 19
By archetype
Oil, chemicals and gas industries: Refining, petrochemicals, LNG using
blue hydrogen to lower the Cl of their own products
Natural gas industry: Converting natural gas to blue ammonia for
export
Power industry: Converting coal and natural gas fired power stations
to fire blue hydrogen to produce low Cl electricity
Consortiums of industries (clusters): Converting natural gas to blue
hydrogen to decarbonise heavy industrial clusters
Figure 4a The four blue hydrogen projects
carbon intensity blue hydrogen molecule and
can capture as much as 99.9% of the CO₂ that
is routed to the CO₂ capture plant from high-
pressure, single-source, pre-combustion gas
streams. This limits the Scope 1 emissions,
which makes it the preference for greenfield
applications that require high capture rates.
Third, unlike ATR and SMR, the Shell Gas
POx technology is non-catalytic, so it does
not require the same extent of expensive gas
pretreatment as a catalytic process and can still
provide significant feed flexibility by default.
Low Cl Oil, chemicals and gas industries
products
Excess
blue hydrogen to other industries
Blue ammonia NH3
(for export) Low Cl
SBHP Natural gas industries
products
Low Cl
Power industry
products
Low Cl Consortiums of industries (clusters)
products
Cement Paper Refining
CO2
19
19/10/2022 17:28:07
 Shell’s blue hydrogen insights
Since launching the SBHP as an alternative
to SMR and ATR in 2020, Shell has gained
important insights into the status of the global
blue hydrogen landscape and is exploring
opportunities and projects around the world.
From these activities, Shell has defined four
project archetypes that describe the key, current
applications for blue hydrogen (see Figures
4a and 4b). The SBHP has several important
advantages for these projects when compared
with SMR and ATR.
Blue hydrogen and the oil, chemical, and
gas industries
Conventionally, a refinery uses fuel gas or
natural gas in multiple fired heaters to provide
energy, resulting in atmospheric CO2 emissions
from multiple stack locations. Post-combustion
carbon capture is possible, but post-combustion
gases are low pressure, must be captured from
multiple locations, and typically have lower CO2
concentrations, thereby making carbon capture
less efficient and more expensive.
Industrial clusters, or hubs,
are becoming an increasingly
important concept as heavy
industrial emitters look to
develop collective, cost-effective
decarbonisation pathways
Instead, companies are now looking to
use conventional feedstocks in a centralised
production facility to produce hydrogen
that can be used to power furnaces and gas
turbines as well as directly in conversion
processes. The advantage of this is that CO₂
can be captured from a high-pressure, pre-
combustion gas stream at a single location,
which is cheaper and can help to reduce Scope
1 emissions.
For this strategy, the SBHP has the
advantage that since the CO₂ is captured at
high-pressure from pre-combustion streams,
medium-pressure CO₂ is easily produced for
transportation or storage, without the need
for further compression. The process also
20
DT6 Shell.indd 20
offers greater feed flexibility, including fuel gas,
natural gas, biomass, and bottom-of-the-barrel
refinery products.
Blue hydrogen and the natural gas industry
Many natural gas exporters are looking to
use their natural gas as a feedstock for blue
ammonia production, which is an efficient
hydrogen carrier and provides a more efficient
way of exporting hydrogen molecules to
market. This strategy is particularly suited to
locations where local natural gas production
exceeds the local demand.
In this scenario, the SBHP has the advantage
because it can leverage high-pressure natural
gas feeds and deliver high-pressure hydrogen,
reducing the compression costs for ammonia
production. As an oxygen-based technology,
the nitrogen produced by air separation
during hydrogen production can be used to
produce the blue ammonia for this application.
Additionally, the process can capture as much
as 99% of the CO₂ emitted during hydrogen
production, thereby lowering the carbon
intensity of the ammonia and any associated
downstream products.
Blue hydrogen and the power industry
Current demand for blue hydrogen in the
power sector is relatively small. Shell expects
large growth in this area as utility companies
continue to seek lower-carbon solutions for
power production. Consequently, companies
are looking at blue hydrogen as an alternative to
coal or natural gas.
Compared to SMR and ATR, the SBHP
produces hydrogen and captures CO₂ at higher
pressures and at the larger scales required to
result in a lower levellised cost of hydrogen.
Power plant efficiency can be improved by
integrating the high-pressure steam from the
SBHP with the power generation plant.
Blue hydrogen and consortiums of
industries (clusters)
Industrial clusters, or hubs, are becoming
an increasingly important concept as heavy
industrial emitters look to develop collective,
cost-effective decarbonisation pathways. For
example, rather than each emitter developing
its own blue hydrogen solution, clusters
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
19/10/2022 17:28:26
 1. High capture
rates are possible
95%
3. Ready for a Carbon capture
renewable feedstock,
for a negative carbon Renewable
footprint feedstock
BIO SBHP
Figure 5 Three key roles the SBHP can play in future-proofing industrial clusters
will develop a single, centralised hydrogen
production unit that plugs into every facility.
The SBHP is well suited to this application
because the partial oxidation process on which
it is based is proven at a large scale, which
reduces the project risks when large quantities
of hydrogen are needed. The feed flexibility
of SBHP enables alternative feedstocks to be
used, including waste gas generated by cluster
partners. Additionally, high-pressure gas feeds
can be leveraged to deliver high-pressure
hydrogen and CO₂, reducing the compression
costs for transportation. The SBHP technology
offers high process efficiency at high carbon
capture rates that reduce the amount of CO₂
emitted per unit molecule of hydrogen. It also
enables emitters to capture more CO₂ at a
lower cost.
Future-proofing industrial clusters
The SBHP can play three key roles in future-
proofing blue hydrogen facilities (see Figure 5).
First, it can help companies remain aligned with
increasingly strict carbon capture regulations.
Currently, while many projects already require
90% carbon capture rates, policymakers are
expected to increase this requirement to 95%
and potentially more in the near future.
Indeed, most of the new projects that Shell
has been seeing are mandating capture rates of
at least 95%.
Second, Shell’s technology provides the
option for clusters to manufacture and
export blue ammonia, thereby extending
project life should the cluster switch to using
green hydrogen.
Third, the feed flexibility of the SBHP means
that the natural gas feed can be gradually
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
DT6 Shell.indd 21
Low Cl
products
Steel Power Cement Paper Refining
Blue hydrogen
2. Ammonia
optionality
NH3
CO2
replaced with a renewable feedstock such
as biogas to create renewable (not green)
hydrogen that is carbon negative.
Blue hydrogen and beyond
Shell is not just a technology provider and
licensor, it is also a facility owner and operator
with a commitment to reducing its impact on
the climate, so it understands the challenges
and concerns of plant owners and operators
around the world. The hydrogen value chain is
complex; however, Shell is well positioned to
play a leading role not just in supplying
technology but also in market and infrastructure
development and establishing robust supply
chains and distribution networks.
Shell is currently involved in and evaluating
many hydrogen opportunities, both blue and
green. For example, the SBHP could play a
critical role in the decarbonisation journey of
Shell assets and those of our customers.
A key part of this process is asking the right
questions: what hydrogen capacity is needed;
what is the quality of the feedstock; and does
the facility need the flexibility to produce both
hydrogen and ammonia to meet current and
future market demands?
It may be several decades before zero-
carbon green hydrogen alone can meet
demand. Nevertheless, Shell’s insights
demonstrate that its blue hydrogen technology
is ready to provide a cleaner and more cost-
effective alternative to carbon-intensive grey
hydrogen today.
Mario Graca
Mario.Graca@shell.com
21
19/10/2022 17:28:43
 ENERGY TRANSITION TO
REFINING TRANSFORMATION
What does it mean to be part of the global energy transition?
At Grace it means transforming the way we support the
petroleum refining industry for a more sustainable future.
Let’s collaborate on the next wave of FCC technology.

Contact your Grace

representative today.

grace.com

grace.indd 1 28/07/2022 10:25:40

 Carbon capture, utilisation and
storage in the energy transition
CCUS has a vital, albeit limited, role to play in delivering a net-zero economy by
mid-century alongside zero-carbon electricity and clean hydrogen
Mike Hemsley
Energy Transitions Commission

E
ven with the most ambitious possible
reductions in gross emissions, it is almost
certain that cumulative CO₂ emissions
between now and 2050 will exceed the
‘carbon budget’ consistent with a 1.5°C climate
objective. With clean electricity delivering
65-70% of the world’s final energy demand,
accompanied by a significant role for low-carbon
hydrogen, and a modest role for sustainable,
low-carbon bioresources, the capture of
7 GtCO₂/year by 2050 will still be required, from
0.04 GtCO₂/year today, and equivalent to around
20% of CO₂ emissions from the world’s energy
system today. Carbon capture, utilisation and
storage (CCUS) must therefore play three vital
but limited roles in the energy transition:
• To decarbonise those sectors where
alternatives are technically limited (i.e. industrial
processes which by their nature produce CO₂,
such as cement)
• To deliver some of the CO₂ removals required
to achieve global climate objectives
• To provide a low-cost decarbonisation solution
in some sectors and geographies where CCUS
is economically advantaged relative to other
decarbonisation vectors locally
The Energy Transitions Commission (ETC)
recently completed its Making Mission
Possible series of reports demonstrating that
it is possible to achieve faster reductions in
emissions than seemed feasible a decade ago,
including in harder-to-abate sectors driven
by clean electricity, low-carbon hydrogen
and sustainable bioresources. This article
summarises some key messages from the latest
report, CCUS in the Energy Transition: Vital but
Limited, which assesses the roles CCUS should
play on the path to net zero and what action
is required by governments, corporate, and
finance to achieve it. The full report is available

Fossil fuel Cement High value

processing chemicals
7
Power CCS Point source Sustainable
Aviation fuels Fossil Air
6 CCU biomass
Iron & steel Aggregates
Fossil Direct air Increased Net zero
5 Blue hydrogen Plastics carbon emissions N/A
CCU
EOR efficiency (BECCU)
Cement
GtCO2 / year

4 Net zero
Point source N/A N/A emissions
BECC Bioresources
CCS (DACCU)
3

Stored CO2 Net zero Carbon N/A

2 emissions removals
DACC Air DACCS &
1 BECCS N/A Carbon Carbon
removals removals
0
CO2 capture End of life Source Capture type Impact on CO2 emissions
& end of life

Figure 1 Varying combinations of CO₂ capture and end of life imply different impacts on CO₂ emissions

www.decarbonisationtechnology.com 23

DT6 ETC.indd 23 19/10/2022 14:51:04

 to download for free from www.energy-
transitions.org
Supporting role of CCUS in decarbonisation
pathways
The need for CCUS depends on the cost and
availability of alternative decarbonisation
technologies. ~7-10 GtCO₂/year of carbon
capture is likely to be required by 2050, of which
around 65% relates to non-fossil fuel sources
of CO₂ such as cement process emissions,
bioenergy with carbon capture and storage
(BECCS), and direct air capture (DAC). The other
35% – around 2.5-4.0 GtCO₂/year – would allow
a significant but dramatically reduced scale of
fossil fuel use (for example, around 10 Mb/d and
2,700 billion cubic metres (BCM) of gas, 90%
and 30% below today’s levels) to be compatible
with achieving a zero-carbon economy.
Technological feasibility and carbon
removal potential
The CCUS value chain can be considered in four
stages – source, capture, transport, and end of
life – which can entail either storage or use.
Capture The majority of CCUS costs occur in
the CO₂ capture stage and typically reflect CO₂
concentration. Different sector applications
present different concentration levels, varying
from over 95% for coal-to-chemical processes
to 0.04% for DAC (reflecting the concentration
of CO₂ in the atmosphere).
Over the last 10 to 15 years, there has been
Direct air capture
BECC power generation
Coal power generation
Gas power generation
Cement
Refining
Iron and steel
Blue H2/NH3
Ethylene oxide
Bioethanol
Coal to chemicals
Natural gas processing
0 50 100
Figure 2 Estimates of sectorial levelised cost of capture today vary wildly
24
DT6 ETC.indd 24
only a limited reduction in carbon capture
costs, unlike in solar PV panels, wind turbines,
batteries, and (more recently) electrolysers,
where dramatic cost reductions have been
achieved. As a result, the cost competitiveness
of other decarbonisation vectors has
significantly improved relative to CCUS. The
costs of applying CCUS in many applications are
still considered cost-effective, though significant
future cost reductions are likely to be limited.
In the case of DAC, however, improvements
in energy efficiency and reductions in Capex
costs driven by technology improvements and
scale effects are expected to reduce costs from
around $450/tCO₂ today to below $100/tCO2 in
advantaged regions by 2050.
Transport CO₂ can be transported safely
and at a low cost via pipeline, truck, or ship.
The majority of transported CO₂ is likely to be
transferred via onshore and offshore pipelines.
Storage At end-of-life, CO₂ can be permanently
stored or used in products, materials, or fuels.
Global theoretical geological storage volumes
are vast and exist in nearly all regions. Potential
storage volumes have been estimated at
exceeding 10,000 GtCO₂, which would be
enough to store today’s total annual CO₂
emissions (circa 40 Gt) each year for more than
250 years.
Where available, storage costs are, on
average, $10-20 per tonne, which is typically
cheaper than utilising CO₂ instead of storing it.
150 200 250 300 350
$/tCO2
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
19/10/2022 14:51:04
 1 Injecting
Compressed CO2 pumped Injection from Injection from
onshore facilities Capture
underground via well offshore facilities
Large-scale CO2
emission source
Pipeline
2 Containment transportation
CO2 impermeable cap rock Pipeline
layer on top of the reservoir transportation
or aquifer prevents diffusion 4 4
to the ground 1
Cap rock
1 1
3 Trapping 2
CO2 moves within store and Cap rock 4
becomes trapped by dissolving Cement plug Minimum
in brine or being physically CO2 injection
2
absorbed in small rock pores depth 800m
3 CO2

Onshore or offshore
4 Plugging Onshore aquifer injection into saline 3
At the end of operation, a aquifers or depleted Offshore aquifer
cement plug is used to seal the oil/gas field
injection well permanently

Figure 3 The process of storing CO2 in onshore and offshore aquifers

Importance of the source of CO₂
The ultimate carbon balance of capturing,
utilising, and storing CO₂ will depend on the
source of CO₂ and the duration of its storage
and/or utilisation.
The capture of CO₂ from fossil fuel combustion
or industrial processes can result in sector
decarbonisation if the CO₂ is stored or used in
long-term applications such as construction
aggregates. It can increase carbon efficiency
if CO₂ is used for short-term applications (for
example, to produce a synthetic fuel product),
but it will never result in net carbon removal.
In contrast, if CO₂ is captured via
photosynthesis or DAC and either stored or
permanently used, it can generate net carbon
removal. Any public policies that support CCUS,
and all carbon accounting for CCUS, must
therefore be based on a rigorous assessment of
the carbon effect, combining both sources and
end-of-life outcomes.
Carbon storage can be safe and permanent
with strict regulation
Storage can be safe and permanent, provided
it is well managed and strongly regulated.
This is achieved through a series of manmade
and natural factors, which act as barriers
preventing leakage:
• Artificial measures include plugging injection
wells with steel and concrete seals; natural
factors relate to CO₂ being injected under a
cap rock which acts as a barrier to release; over
time, the CO₂ is dissolved in brine or physically
absorbed into rock pores.
• Although manmade storage sites have not
been in operation long enough to prove their
capacity to permanently trap CO₂, naturally
occurring subterranean stores of CO₂ have
remained trapped for thousands of years. This
is further supported by real-world evidence
from existing CCS facilities running since
the 1990s and from academic studies of the
technical feasibility.
Theoretically, there is a risk that CO₂ injected
underground may leak out of the reservoir
through naturally occurring pathways (such as
faults) or via manmade pathways (such as faulty
wells). CO₂ leaks will only be minimised if strong
regulation is enforced. Oil and gas companies
have experience in drilling, pumping, simulation
of geological behaviours, and well management,
which means the expertise required to inject
and store CO₂ underground is already available.
Strong safety and regulatory regimes will need
to be put in place to ensure the risk of accidental
leaks is limited, with parties held accountable
when managing large volumes of CO₂.
Limited applications of carbon utilisation
Utilisation of CO₂ is expected to account for
around 35% of all captured CO₂ in 2050.
Utilisation is typically justified under one of
three cases:

www.decarbonisationtechnology.com 25

DT6 ETC.indd 25 19/10/2022 14:51:05

 • The CO₂ input is either essential in a
production process which would in any case
occur (urea production), or delivers value via
increased production (enhanced oil recovery
or EOR). The cost of utilisation is, in these
cases, negative since the urea producers or
EOR operators will pay for the CO₂ delivered,
even if there is no carbon price. This applies to
~0.5 GtCO₂/year in 2050.
However, the use of CCUS for EOR has
played a major role in undermining public
confidence in CCUS technologies as it raises
moral hazard concerns around legitimising
a ‘business as usual’ role of fossil fuels. In
total, EOR should play only a very limited role,
compatible with future global oil consumption
of around 7 Mb/d.
• CO₂ can be used as an input to form a new
product. In the case of synthetic fuel (and also
synthetic methane, methanol, or plastics), the
captured CO₂ is used instead of fossil fuels
to produce an economically valuable product,
but the total production cost is higher than the
conventionally produced product. As a result,
a carbon price (or equivalent regulation) will
be required to make CO₂ sequestration cost-
competitive with fossil fuel inputs.
The ETC analysis suggests that synthetic fuels,
which combine captured CO₂ with low-carbon
hydrogen, are likely to become a cost-effective
option for the decarbonisation of aviation over
the next 30 years, utilising around 0.8 GtCO₂/
year in 2050. A further 0.7 GtCO₂ per year is
likely to be required as an input to plastic and
chemical production.
• CO₂ has no economic value, and utilisation
is essentially a form of storage. In the case of
construction aggregates, CO₂ sequestration is
not essential to the economic function or quality
of the aggregates delivered. Therefore, ‘using’
CO₂ in construction aggregates is effectively
another form of storage, and the relevant
comparison is between the cost of achieving
sequestration within aggregates versus the cost
of transport and storage in geological formations.
Aggregates are expected to utilise 0.4 GtCO₂/
year in 2050, although if the correct industrial
residues used in the carbonisation process can
be made available, this figure could be an order
of magnitude higher. Blending CO₂ into cement
could add a further 0.05 GtCO₂/year.
Obstacles to CCUS scale-up so far
Achieving the growth required in the 2020s
would entail a dramatic change in trend after
a decade in which the number of operating
plants has grown at a glacial pace and many
announced projects have been abandoned.
CCUS was once viewed as having a prominent
future role in power decarbonisation, but the
falling costs of wind and solar have severely
diminished its likely role in that sector.
Conversely, the necessary role of CCUS in
sectors such as cement has only become
apparent over the last decade as industry and
policymakers have focused on the need to

kgCO2/bbl CO2 Net

Recovery Utilisation EOR Production Combustion Source Injection Production Combustion
source emissions

CO2 Oil Fuel

CO2
Mature reservoir 300 -300 100 400 500
CO2
CO2 via
CCU Point
New source 300 -300 100 400 500+
capture utility
CO2

DACCS &
Low CO2
low case 0 -300 100 400 200
CO2 ratio
Emerging
CO2
DACCS &
High CO2 high case 0 -600 100 400 -100
CO2 ratio

Figure 4 Net CO₂ emissions from oil produced via EOR vary, according to where the CO₂ is
sourced from and the ratio of CO₂ injected to oil recovered

26 www.decarbonisationtechnology.com

DT6 ETC.indd 26 19/10/2022 14:51:05

 Boundary Dam Gorgon Petra Nova

• Power and EOR • Natural gas processing • Power and EOR

• CO2 captured from flue • CO2 captured from • CO2 captured from flue
gases at a coal-fired raw natural gas, then gases at a coal-fired
Sector and application power plant reinjected underground power plant
• C02 is then reinjected for geological storage • C02 is then used for
for enhanced oil EOR
recovery

Chevron Australia,
NRG Energy,
Companies involved SaskPower ExxonMobil, Shell, Osaka
JX Nippon Oil
Gas, Tokyo Gas, JERA

Plant operation 2014 - present 2019 - present 2017 - 2020

Not specified, but

Plant size (MtC02 captured) 1 MtC02 4 MtC02 targeted ~2.9 MtC02
captured across 2 years

Target capture (%) 90% 80% 90%

65% between 2014-21

45% (for 12 months
Achieved capture rate (%) (highest achieved rate of 92.4% across 3 years
running to July 2021)
94.6% throughout 2018)

Outages leading to
Scale-up challenges with Sand blocking successful
down time, of both the
Main challenges faced flue gas flow, amine flow, injection of C02 into
carbon capture and other
and heat transfer geological storage site
facilities

Figure 5 Characteristics of three recent CCUS projects

achieve zero emissions even in the hard-to-
abate sectors of the economy. This clarity on the
role of CCUS can allow for more targeted CCUS
support from governments, and effort from
industry, to scale CCUS deployment this decade.
Capture rates of around 90% are often treated
as a reasonable benchmark of acceptable
performance. In practice, actual capture rates have
frequently fallen short of this, reflecting either
cost-minimising decisions, engineering failures, or
an early stage of technological development. The
optimal rate of growth of CCUS deployment by
sector will reflect both the technological readiness
of carbon capture by sector and the economics
of alternative decarbonisation pathways, which
in turn are a function of uncertain future trends in
technology costs.
A lack of coordination of asset build-out has
left project developers needing to manage
‘cross-chain’ risks across three different types
of assets: capture, transport, and storage.
Risks include counterparty default and volume
uncertainty leading to under-utilisation of
assets. As a result, there is a potential ‘first
mover disadvantage’ for investors who invest in
one element within the total required system.
Additionally, a lack of public acceptance in
some regions is based on a perception that
promises of future CCUS deployment are used
to legitimise continued reliance on fossil fuels.
This is compounded by a negative feedback
loop where failed or underperforming projects
have led to perceptions that the technology
doesn’t really work.
Scale-up required by 2030
By 2030, CCUS needs to scale about 20x,
including at more than 300 facilities (from ~30
today) across carbon removal, cement, blue
hydrogen, iron and steel, petrochemicals and
fossil fuel processing, power generation, and
synthetic jet fuel. Over 100 new CCUS projects

www.decarbonisationtechnology.com 27

DT6 ETC.indd 27 19/10/2022 14:51:05

 Million tonnes CO2 per annum

Sector CO2 removed CO2 removal Estimated CCS CCS facilities needed in 2030
in 2021 needed 2030 ÷ Plant size =
Operational projects Additional projects
Iron & steel 1 10 4 1 2 Pipeline projects needed

Power CCS 1 220 4 1 27 27 55

Fossil fuel
processing 33 160 2 19 53 8 80
Blue H2/
ammonia 3 125 1.5 7 17 51 75

Cement <1 40 1.5 3 23 30

BECCS 0 170 4 3 39 40

DACCS <1 60 1 1 2 57 60

Total 37 800 -

Figure 6 Over 200 additional projects need to enter the CCUS project pipeline in the early 2020s

are currently under development. Given the
long lead times associated with CCUS projects,
reaching our 2030 volumes requires additional
projects to be initiated in the first half of the
2020s, and actions to be taken to accelerate
project development timeframes where possible.
Total capital investment required to deliver
this pathway could reach almost $5 trillion over
the next 30 years and exceed $400 billion per
annum by 2050 – a manageable figure within
the context of the overall energy transition. Past
growth has been slow, with multiple project
cancellations and disappointing cost reduction.
Partly this reflects improved economics for
other decarbonisation levers but also policy and
coordination failures that must be addressed.
Six critical actions in the 2020s
To deliver this growth will require action
by governments – acting either directly or
as regulators, oil and gas companies, other
industries, and finance providers. Specific policies
to drive this scale of development will need to
reflect national and regional circumstances and
should be informed by indicative targets for
development at the national/regional level.
The ETC recommends six critical actions in the
2020s to achieve the scale of CCUS needed in
the next decade:
 Overcoming the green premium to make CCUS
deployment economic through, for example,
carbon pricing and early-stage financial support
where needed – scaled through a combination of
government and industry mechanisms (such as
low-carbon product standards, buyer coalitions,
procurement mechanisms).
 Developing enabling infrastructures such as
shared transport pipelines and storage sites.
Government and industry can develop CCUS
hubs that enable economies of scale.
 Targeting R&D and deployment support
towards high capture, next-generation CCUS
technologies, as well as developing innovative
business models to extend CCUS from large
players only to midcap entities.
 Regulating and managing risks to ensure
responsible and secure CCUS development by
assigning long-term responsibility for storage
sites and meaningful penalties for leakage.
 Setting standards and regulations to ensure
high CO₂ capture rates, alongside developing
transparent, best-practice monitoring of CCUS.
 Building public support for CCUS’ appropriate
role as a low-carbon technology by articulating
a clear, strategic, but limited role for CCUS, and
ensuring transparency on performance.
The full report, Carbon Capture Utilisation & Storage in
the Energy Transition: Vital but Limited, and an Executive
Summary are available to download at www.energy-
transitions.org.
Mike Hemsley

28 www.decarbonisationtechnology.com

DT6 ETC.indd 28 19/10/2022 14:51:05

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ametek.indd 1 04/02/2022 13:36:59

 DMX CO2 capture technology:
an industrial demonstration
An innovative CO2 capture absorption process technology offers improved
performance and reduced energy requirements compared with existing solvent

Christian Streicher
Axens

A
ll scenarios anticipating carbon
neutrality by 2050, led by those of
the International Energy Agency
(IEA), confirm the need to shift to cleaner
energy systems to achieve net-zero emissions
through a wide range of solutions. Among the
transformations proposed for the energy sector,
heavy industries and transport, carbon capture
and storage is ranked among the top solutions
to reach this goal.
Carbon capture is thus due to play a
fundamental role in achieving the Net Zero
Emissions scenario in 2050: indeed, as stated in
IEA’s 2020 Global Status of CCS report, “Without
CCS, net-zero is practically impossible.”
CO₂ capture by amine scrubbing is currently
considered a suitable technology for sectors
with large, fixed CO₂ emissions due to its
robustness, adaptability, and capability of
producing a highly concentrated CO₂ stream,
suitable for transporting and storing or reuse.
Some significant challenges need, however,
to be addressed for the industrial deployment
of this technology, among which reducing
the process energy penalty is critical. Other
challenges, such as limiting solvent and VOC
emissions, long-term process stability and
footprint reduction, also need to be addressed.
The DMX Process technology presented in this
article provides improved solvent formulation
and process configuration to answer
those challenges.
Technology presentation
The DMX Process is a CO₂ capture process
developed by IFP Energies nouvelles (IFPEN),
based on CO₂ absorption by a demixing
Gas CO2 lean solvent
treated
CO2
Decanter
Lean
solvent
Up to
Absorber 5 barg
CO2 rich
solvent
Flue Stripper
gas
Reboiler
Rich solvent Lean
solvent
Figure 1 Typical process flow diagram of DMX
technology
solvent. The DMX Solvent consists of a mixture
of two organic compounds in an aqueous
solution which is demixing under certain
conditions of temperature and CO₂ partial
pressure. Figure 1 illustrates the main steps
of the Process. The flue gas (or other types
of gas) to be treated is contacted with the
solvent in a counter-current absorber. The rich
solvent from the absorber bottom is preheated
in a lean/rich heat exchanger, which creates
conditions for demixing of the solvent. This
demixing allows phase separation in a decanter
into a lean solvent phase which can be directly
recycled to the absorber and a rich solvent
phase fed to a thermal regenerator.
The DMX Solvent has a high cyclic capacity
(much higher than standard monoethanolamine
(MEA), for instance), and only the CO₂-
rich phase needs to be regenerated, which

www.decarbonisationtechnology.com 31

DT6 Axens.indd 31 19/10/2022 14:55:40

 DMX performance
Energy penalty target From 2.3 to 2.9 GJ/tCO2 depending on application and capture
CO2 capture rate
CO2 purity
CO2 pressure (regenerator top) Up to 5 barg, which allows a huge CO2 compression cost
reduction compared to other commercial processes
Table 1 Main performance data of DMX technology
contributes to reducing the heat requirement
for thermal regeneration. Another beneficial
feature of the Solvent is its high thermal
stability, which allows regeneration at higher
temperatures than amine solvents such as
MEA. This allows CO₂ recovery at higher
pressure (up to 5 barg) and contributes to
significant CO₂ compression cost savings. The
Solvent also offers high chemical stability in the
presence of oxygen, which is beneficial for all
kinds of flue gas applications.
The DMX Process has great
potential for reducing the energy
penalty and cost of CO₂ capture for
a large variety of applications
The performance of the DMX Solvent has
been assessed through initial laboratory
studies and small-scale pilot plant tests
through previous collaborative projects like
Octavius (OCTAVIUS, 2022) and Valorco
(VALORCO, 2022). Thanks to the Solvent’s
properties, the Process has great potential
for reducing the energy penalty and cost of
CO₂ capture for a large variety of applications.
Compared to the first-generation absorption
process using 30 wt% MEA, the DMX Process
allows a reduction of 30% on the energy
penalty and cost of CO₂ capture.
The DMX Solvent is less corrosive than
MEA, allowing the use of carbon steel as the
principal material, which also reduces the Capex
compared to other first-generation solvents.
The performance characteristics of the
Process, based on the development carried out
at IFPEN, are summarised in Table 1.
32
DT6 Axens.indd 32
Requirements and precisions
Up to 99.5% CO2 captured
Up to 99.7 vol% (dry)
DMX appeared as the best rated second-
generation solvent for CO₂ capture in previous
benchmarking studies, such as the one
presented by Prachi Singh (IEAGH) at GHGT-11
(Singh and Brilman, 2012).
The DMX Process was originally developed
for CO₂ capture from coal power station flue
gases and gas from steel manufacturing,
on which specific experiments have been
conducted. However, it is also suitable for
capturing CO₂ from other emitters, such
as refinery FCC units and steam methane
reformers (SMR), waste incinerators, cement
plants, district heating, and the production of
electricity from biomass.
The Process is well adapted to CO2 capture on
industrial smoke or industrial gas when the CO₂
partial pressures are low to medium. The DMX
technology has been developed and optimised
to capture CO₂ at partial pressures in the range
of 0.1-1 bara in flue gas.
Development history
The DMX Process has already undergone 10
years of development from laboratory scale
(Raynal et al., 2010) to global optimisation in the
power (Raynal et al., 2014, Broutin et al., 2016),
and steel industries (Dreillard et al., 2016), and
has now reached Technology Readiness Level 4
(TRL4), as shown in Figure 2.
The Octavius project, developed in
partnership with ENEL, was aimed at
demonstrating integrated concepts for zero-
emission power plants covering all components
needed for power generation from coal as
well as CO₂ capture and compression. The
Valorco project, coordinated by ArcelorMittal
and funded by ADEME, was aimed at
reducing and valorising CO₂ emissions from
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
19/10/2022 14:55:40
 the steel industry. Within those projects,
experimentation was carried out at IFPEN
in Solaize, France, on a small-scale pilot unit
(0.2 kgCO₂/h). It included parametric studies
using representative synthetic gas and a long-
duration test (1,500 hours) with the addition of
impurities present in real gases to measure the
degradation of the DMX Solvent.
The main conclusions drawn from those
preliminary studies were:
• That DMX Solvent appears significantly less
energy intensive than MEA 30 wt%
• For steel mill applications, it is more cost
effective to capture the CO₂ directly from the
blast furnace gas, rather than from the power
station flue gas, due to higher CO₂ partial
pressures in blast furnace gas
Industrial pilot testing: 3D project
As a result of the positive conclusions of the
Valorco study summarised above, the partners
in the project (ArcelorMittal, TotalEnergies,
IFPEN, and Axens) decided to install an
industrial demonstration pilot in ArcelorMittal’s
steel mill plant in Dunkirk. The main targets of
this operation are:
• To demonstrate the applicability of the DMX
technology on blast furnace gases
• To confirm the energetic performance of the
technology
• To confirm the sizing rules and tools for future
DMX units through parametric tests
• To assess the main performance parameters
in terms of solvent degradation, solvent and
VOC, emissions, and quality of CO₂ produced
(including the possibility of recovering the CO₂
under pressure)
• To confirm long-term stability of the Process
This project, named 3D for DMX
Demonstration in Dunkirk, is led by IFPEN
with support from the European Union under
Horizon 2020 funding.
In addition to the four original partners,
another eight entities have now joined the 3D
project: DTU, Gassco AS, Greenflex, Brevik,
Uetikon (Group Sequens), Air Products, ETH
Zurich, and John Cockerill.
Apart from the DMX Demonstration in
Dunkirk, at the heart of the project, other tasks
are being undertaken:
• Pre-FEED for a large-scale DMX unit to be
installed in Dunkirk as well, which could be the
next step for the industrialisation of the DMX
technology
• Production of the Solvent
• Heat recovery from various sources in the
steel mill and integration with DMX
• Conditioning, liquefaction, and transport to
suitable offshore storage sites in the North
Sea of the recovered CO₂
• Social acceptability of CO₂ capture in
Dunkirk
• Possibility of developing an industrial cluster
for CCS in the Dunkirk industrial area

VALORCO project (steel mill case) 3D project

TRL
9
System test launch 9
8 and operations
OCTAVIUS 8
(coal case) 7 System / subsystem 7
development
6 6
Technology
demonstration
TRL

5 5
Technology
4 development 4
3 Research to prove 3
feasibility
Lab tests @ 2 2
IFPEN Basic technology
Bubble size: associated effort (a.u.)
1 research 1
2000 2010 2020 2030
Timeline

Figure 2 Timeline of DMX process development

www.decarbonisationtechnology.com 33

DT6 Axens.indd 33 19/10/2022 14:55:40

 7
Composition
9 6 CO Mol% 23.4
3
8
5
Solvent CO2 Mol% 25
Main 2 Absorption
regeneration
BFG section
header
1
4
section H2 Mol% 4.4
Feed gas
conditioning/ N2 Mol% 46.9
compression section
02 Mol% 0.3

H2S ppmv 20
Figure 3 Overall pilot plant configuration
COS ppmv 20
DMX pilot design: process configuration
Particles mg/Nm3 25 max
The DMX pilot has been designed for a total
CO₂ capture capacity of 0.5 T/H. The process Total Mol% 100
description is shown in Figure 3.
The feed gas  from the blast furnace is taken Table 2 Blast furnace composition
from an existing main process line and sent to
a conditioning and compression unit. This unit Absorber inlet conditions
removes the particles from the feed gas and Pressure barg 0.2-20
adjusts the pressure at the DMX absorber inlet
(stream ). The CO₂ is separated from the gas Temperature ºC 20-40
in the absorption section to produce a treated
%CO2 Mol% 8.0-35.0
gas  depleted in CO₂. A pure wet CO2 stream
 is produced in the solvent regeneration Table 3 Absorber range of operating conditions
section. This regeneration section includes the
decanter and thermal regenerator. The pilot Regeneration section conditions
plant is fitted with all necessary analysers
Pressure barg 2.0-5.0
and instrumentation to measure precisely the
performances of the capture unit using the DMX Table 4 Regeneration pressure range
Solvent. The treated gas and separated CO2 are
mixed together before being routed back to the
main blast furnace gas header . It also enables Construction of pilot plant
recycling of a portion of the treated gas  or The construction strategy was to prefabricate,
CO₂ stream  to the absorber in order to have under Axens’ responsibility, the main process
the possibility to modify (increase or decrease) components in modular form in a yard outside
the CO₂ content at the absorber inlet. The rich ArcelorMittal’s site and then bring those
solvent  goes from the absorption section to modules onto the site to minimise site activities.
the regeneration section, which in return sends After delivery of the modules to the site at
the lean solvent  back to the absorber. the end of 2021, the unit was connected to
the gas and utility networks of the site, pre-
Range of operating conditions commissioned, and successfully started in
The composition of the blast furnace gas feeding September 2022.
the demonstration plant is given in Table 2. The
operating conditions can be adjusted at the inlet Demonstration plant operation
of the absorber thanks to the compression unit The demonstration plant operation is currently
and the recycling lines, as shown in Table 3, under start-up. A total of 14 months (60
while the operating conditions of the decanter weeks) of operation are planned, excluding
and the regenerator can be adjusted in the the commissioning, start-up, and dismantling
pressure ranges shown in Table 4. steps. The experimental programme has

34 www.decarbonisationtechnology.com

DT6 Axens.indd 34 19/10/2022 14:55:41

 been defined in order to reach the targets
described in the 3D project section. The
operating time of the pilot unit is distributed
in two different types of tests:
• Eight months dedicated to a set of
parametric studies
• Six months invested in performing a long-
term test to demonstrate the stability and
robustness of the DMX Process over time
under stabilised conditions
Several operating conditions, such as
the quality of the solvent regeneration,
the solvent and raw gas temperatures,
or the absorption and regeneration
pressures, will be studied to optimise the
energy consumption of the Process for
different CO2 capture applications. Solvent
emissions in treated gas and extracted CO₂
will be measured, and specific tests will
be performed to optimise the operating
parameters to limit those solvent emissions.
Several solvent samplings over time will be
obtained to characterise solvent stability. The
composition of the solvent and degradation
compounds composition will be monitored.
Several metal coupons will be installed and
analysed to monitor corrosion over time of
different material metallurgies. Similarly,
different elastomer coupons installed in several
sections of the process will be analysed to
evaluate seal material stability.

Conclusions
DMX is an innovative CO₂ capture absorption
process technology developed by IFPEN with
significantly improved performance compared
with existing solvent. Its energy requirements
are typically 30% less than conventional MEA
solvent. This technology is being demonstrated
in an industrial pilot unit treating blast furnace
gas from ArcelorMittal‘s steel mill plant in
Dunkirk, France. As of today, the pilot is under
start-up, and the first results will be available Figure 4 View of the installed pilot (PAU 100
soon. More detailed results will be presented one the right and PAU 200 on the lower left)
once available in the coming months. (PAU = Pre-Assembled Unit) Credit: IFPEN/Axens

Acknowledgement
This project has received funding from the European
VIEW REFERENCES
Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 838031. The project also
received support by “Le programme d’investissements
Christian Streicher
d’avenir (PIA)” operated by ADEME.
christian.streicher@axens.net

www.decarbonisationtechnology.com 35

DT6 Axens.indd 35 19/10/2022 14:55:41

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basf.indd 1 27/07/2022 15:17:02

 Near- and long-term options for
decarbonising steel production
Longer-term solutions to decarbonise the steel industry are not sustainable today,
but steelmakers can take affordable short-term steps towards decarbonisation
Joachim von Schéele
Linde
T
he steel industry ranks amongst the top
three CO₂ emitters from the industrial
segment. Consequently, the pressure to
decarbonise steelmaking has led many producers
to set carbon-neutral goals over the 2030-
2050 timeframe. But how are those goals to be
achieved? Based on the individual preconditions,
it is important to develop and deploy roadmaps
that include both near-term actions and, in
parallel, longer-term activities broken down as
measurable milestones. The transition of the
industry, which is the aggregated result of the
actions of each individual plant, is a journey that
will span decades.
In 2021, world steel production reached 1,950
million tonnes (Mt), with a supply of iron for
that steelmaking being 1,354 Mt of iron from
blast furnaces and 119 Mt of direct reduced iron
(DRI), most of the latter produced using natural
gas as reductant. Additionally, some 750 Mt of
scrap were charged.
Steel is the most recycled material in
the world, and the first step to achieving
sustainability and decarbonisation is to
maximise the degree of recycling. Between the
years 2000 and 2010, world steel production
grew by more than 700 Mt/a, predominantly
in China, where today more than half of the
world’s steel production takes place. This is
resulting in a massive increase in availability of
scrap for years to come. Clearly, this will have
a very positive impact on the carbon footprint
of the steel industry, as the increase in scrap
supply will be larger than the growth of steel
production. However, for the next decades,
most of the raw material for steel production
will remain pig iron.
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
DT6 Linde.indd 37
While electrification is the direct route to
decarbonise many processes, several processes
in steel production are extremely difficult to
electrify – these include processes for iron ore
reduction, as well as heating processes which
use large-scale high-temperature combustion
in a steel mill. For such processes, the main
options include use of oxyfuel combustion to
achieve increased energy efficiency, introduction
of low-carbon fuels, and carbon capture.
Ultimately, the use of clean hydrogen as
a reductant as well as a fuel source is the
endgame that steelmakers will adopt when a
viable supply of hydrogen becomes available.
Accordingly, there is a general pathway to
decarbonisation:
 Increase energy efficiency, e.g., by using
oxyfuel combustion
 Use of low-carbon fuels
 Carbon capture
 Use of clean hydrogen as reductant and fuel
Over the next decades, a large transition will
take place, but it will take time and involve
multiple solutions – some more incremental in
their nature, some more disruptive – and the
pace will be different in different parts of the
world. The drive from the market to produce
steel with a low carbon footprint and availability
of a viable supply of clean energy are two
important factors. Figure 1 is an attempt to
summarise the expected general development
over the coming decades.
A greener blast furnace
Integrated steel mills, which produce steel
from iron ore, account for 70% of global
steel production but emit almost 90% of CO₂
37
19/10/2022 15:08:08
 Carbon
Near-term (~2030)
Pellets replacing sinter
More charge of scrap and DRI
Increased energy efficiency
Use of hydrogen as a fuel
Carbon footprint certificates
The pace will be different in different parts of the world. Viable supply of renewable power might be more pace-determining than technology
Figure 1 Neat-term activities, multiple solutions, long-term development projects
emissions due to their high CO₂ intensity of
2.3 t CO₂ per tonne of steel produced (Scope
1-3). In contrast, so-called mini-mills using the
electric arc furnace (EAF) process, with recycled
steel scrap as the primary feedstock, account for
the balance at 30% of global steel production
but produce only 10% of emissions, since they
emit 0.6 t CO₂ per tonne of steel produced.
While mini-mills have the potential to
eliminate almost all their CO₂ emissions by using
renewable electric power and green hydrogen
in their existing production plants, integrated
mills cannot – the blast furnace in an integrated
mill requires a certain minimum level of coke
(practically around 300 kg/t) to operate, with
attendant CO₂ emissions from its use. Therefore,
integrated mills either need ways to capture and
sequester all their CO₂ emissions, or they require
a fundamental change to the processing route
away from the blast furnace, with concomitant
Capex and Opex implications.
Blast furnaces use oxygen enrichment of the
cold blast to improve productivity and to enable
the use of injectants through the tuyeres that
reduce CO₂ emissions. Many blast furnaces
operate with up to 30% oxygen in the blast
today. In addition to the cold blast, oxygen
can also be used in blast furnace stoves,
which is a short-term way to increase energy
efficiency. Stove oxygen enrichment (SOE) is
a method to add high-purity oxygen to the
stove combustion air to eliminate the use of
sweetening high-value fuels like natural gas
or coke oven gas, raise blast temperature, and
debottleneck plugged stoves. Evaluations show
that a 100ºC increase in blast temperature
translates into coke savings of 8-12 kg/t of
pig iron, with an attendant reduction in CO₂
emissions. Linde has successfully implemented
38
DT6 Linde.indd 38
Carbon free
Mid-term (~2040) Long-term (~2050)
Carbon capture Full use of hydrogen as a reductant
Low-carbon fuels Hot end at renewable energy supply,
Partial use of hydrogen as a reductant cold end at market
Low carbon footprint steel is the norm Green steel is the norm
SOE in 14 blast furnaces in the Americas, Asia,
and Europe.
In the short term, charging of DRI, and
potentially also scrap, into the blast furnace
could also decrease its CO₂ emissions. While
DRI is mostly charged into EAFs, it can also be
briquetted into hot briquetted iron (HBI) and
charged into blast furnaces or steelmaking
converters to achieve decarbonisation in an
integrated steel mill. As a rule of thumb, each
10% increase in burden metallisation in a
blast furnace by the addition of HBI increases
the production rate by 8% and decreases the
coke rate by 7%, with attendant CO₂ savings.
Moreover, top gas recycling of the blast furnace
gas combined with carbon capture use and
sequestration (CCUS) is one potential approach
to reduce emissions from integrated steel mills.
It is being considered at sites where CCUS is a
viable option.
Low-carbon fuels
While hydrogen is generally considered the
ultimate low- or zero-carbon fuel of the future,
there are other approaches to low-carbon fuels
in the near term with feedstocks derived from
biomass, waste plastics, municipal solid waste
(MSW), and so on.
The coke rate in blast furnaces can be lowered
using injectants through the tuyeres with a
lower carbon footprint, such as pulverised coal,
natural gas, coke oven gas, and potentially
hydrogen in the future. For example, every
ton of injected coal avoids 0.85-0.95 tonne of
coke production, with accompanying energy
savings of around 3.75 GJ/t injected coal.
However, tuyere injection has its limits due to
a negative impact on the Raceway Adiabatic
Flame Temperature and the ability to combust
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
19/10/2022 15:08:08
 certain injectants within the confines of a tuyere.
These limits can be raised if the injectants are
first gasified into a syngas (CO+H₂) externally,
prior to injection into the tuyeres. This external
gasification can be performed by, for example,
Linde’s Hot Oxygen Technology (HOT) – a fuel-
flexible tool to gasify solid, liquid, or gaseous
feedstocks, including natural gas, coke oven
gas, wide varieties of biomass, waste plastics,
and MSW (see Figure 2). A typical HOT system
is an efficient, small-scale gasifier to generate
reducing gas or syngas up to 35,000 Nm3/h
per unit. Multiple units can be employed to
meet the requirements of a blast furnace. This
approach helps to minimise the CO₂ footprint
of an existing blast furnace without significant
modifications to the production process.
Typically, DRI is produced with natural gas
as the reducing gas in a shaft furnace. A HOT
system can also be used to deliver reducing
gas or syngas to a DRI plant, derived from a
variety of sources, including coke oven gas,
and replacing the need for natural gas. Linde
has worked with MIDREX to develop the
thermal reactor system (TRS) that will produce
clean syngas from coke oven gas and other
hydrocarbon sources for DRI production. TRS
utilises Linde’s partial oxidation technology,
iron ore,
limestone,
and coke
blast furnace
hot air
molten
iron
slag
Blast furnace
Maximise injectant levels, coke replacement
Achieve CO2 savings without cost penalty
Maximise BF decarbonisation, asset utilisation
Figure 2 Gasification to produce low-carbon fuels
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
DT6 Linde.indd 39
using HOT, which offers the potential to do
partial oxidation of hydrocarbons without steam
injection. When this technology is combined
with an extended reaction chamber into which a
preheated stream of coke oven gas is added, the
product gas leaving the chamber is suitable for
direct use as a reducing gas to produce DRI.
Accordingly, there is an option to produce a
low carbon footprint syngas to be used both in
blast furnaces and direct reduction shafts, which
is based on waste plastics, MSW, biomass, and
so on. Thereby we can not only reduce the steel
industry’s carbon footprint but also help solve a
waste problem and support a circular economy,
as well as create a carbon sink.
DRI-EAF
The DRI-EAF route is the most commercially
ready path to full decarbonisation for integrated
steel mills. Over 80 Mt/a of DRI is produced
today in shaft furnaces with natural gas as the
reductant. Considering Scope 1-3, an integrated
mill can decrease its CO₂ footprint from 2.3 to
below 1.6 t/t of finished product by switching
to this processing route, potentially at the time
of blast furnace relines to minimise incremental
investments. Thereafter, CO₂ emissions can
be dropped further down to almost zero by
Linde’s Hot Oxygen Technology
External gasification of low-carbon feedstocks
Flexible Plastics
feedstock
O2 Municipal solid waste
Biomass/pyoil
Hot oxygen
burner Coke oven gas
POx
Syngas (CO + H2)
Efficient, small-scale gasifier to generate hot syngas
Up to 35,000 Nm3/h syngas per unit
DRI
Alternate approach to
decarbonisation of RDI
Advantages over H2:
Cost/economics
Source of carbon for DRI
39
19/10/2022 17:33:27
 using green hydrogen as the reductant instead
of natural gas, along with green power to the
EAF and balance of plant. While up to 70%
hydrogen has already been demonstrated in a
DRI plant, pushing this limit to 100% hydrogen
is the focus of several pilot plants that recently
have been initiated. An important difference
between use of natural gas and pure hydrogen,
however, is the endothermic nature of reduction
with hydrogen, which requires a preheating of
the hydrogen to temperatures above 1,000°C
(this is not needed when using natural gas
as reductant). Additionally, a large obstacle
to expanding the production of DRI is the
availability of suitable iron ore pellets.
It is obvious from the above considerations
that near complete decarbonisation is
possible, but at severe costs which need to
be offset with higher costs of CO₂ emission.
This decarbonisation also requires significant
investments in new facilities and assets –
a daunting challenge for this industry to
overcome. For example, the Capex for an
H2-DRI-EAF plant could be 800-1,000 $/t of
annual capacity, but after factoring in the cost
of the required green power and hydrogen
infrastructure, these costs can escalate to
5,000 $/t of annual capacity. Clearly, this is a
long-term solution for the industry, beyond the
year 2030.
Hydrogen and CCUS for DRI
While reducing iron ore with CO is an
exothermic reaction, reduction with H₂, as
already mentioned, is endothermic. If the
established DR shaft furnaces process uses
natural gas as an input for the reduction, a
reasonable balance between the heat required
and the heat generated is achieved. However,
if increasing levels of H₂ are used to carry out
the reduction, there will be a need to preheat
it beyond 1,000ºC. This can be achieved either
by electric heating or combustion of H₂, or a
combination of both; at higher temperatures,
electric heating becomes less favourable.
Accordingly, use of natural gas but combined
with CCUS could also be advantageous from
that perspective.
Sometimes the DRI process flow sheet includes
a CO₂ removal step to recycle the top gas. In this
case, a high-purity CO₂ stream is readily available
40
DT6 Linde.indd 40
for capture. Another way to increase the CO₂
concentration is to reduce/eliminate nitrogen in
the flue gas with oxyfuel combustion. Most flue
gases contain significant amounts of nitrogen
from the combustion with air, and this nitrogen
is reduced or eliminated by using oxygen
enrichment or 100% oxyfuel combustion.
Oxyfuel combustion
Oxyfuel combustion technology is a solution for
immediate decarbonisation, which also allows
smooth adaptation to hydrogen fuels whenever
viable. Many unit operations in a steel mill use
air for the combustion of fuel, which carries 79%
ballast (almost all of it nitrogen). This nitrogen
is heated up in the furnace and emitted in the
flue gas, resulting in wasted energy, higher fuel
consumption, and CO₂ emissions. Moreover, it
hampers the radiative heat transfer from the
products of combustion, which is the dominant
mechanism at elevated temperatures. The use of
oxygen instead of air, called oxyfuel combustion,
eliminates this nitrogen ballast and results in:
• Up to 60% fuel and CO₂ savings
• 75% reduction in flue-gas volume
• Up to 90% NOx reduction
• On-demand production increase
• Ability to use low calorific gases in heating
and reheating operations
The economics of oxyfuel combustion are
typically driven by fuel price, but as steel mills
adopt green hydrogen fuel to decarbonise
their footprint, oxyfuel combustion will become
economically necessary. This is because
hydrogen prices are expected to drop to
around 2 $/kg, which is equivalent to 15 $/
GJ,Composition
i.e., hydrogen will always be a relatively
expensive fuel; accordingly, oxyfuel combustion
is required to minimise its use. Therefore, the
recommendation to steel mills is to convert to
oxyfuel combustion now to achieve 20-50%
CO₂ reduction and be prepared to blend green
H₂ when it becomes available to achieve full
decarbonisation in the future.
Given the high fuel prices and the need to
decarbonise, oxyfuel combustion offers an
immediate first step for steel mills to adopt
across their flow sheet. Oxyfuel combustion
has been successfully applied to several
steel mill operations, including blast furnace
stoves, pelletising/sintering furnaces, electric
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
20/10/2022 10:05:05
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Figure 3 Hydrogen is an ideal fuel for the
CoJet system
arc furnaces, ladle preheating (40-60%
fuel savings), reheat furnaces (batch and
continuous), and heat treatment furnaces.
Oxyfuel combustion, producing a much smaller
flue gas volume with a high concentration of
CO₂, also supports CCUS. Use of stove oxygen
enrichment is a proven option that can be
comparatively easily deployed at integrated
steel mills, saving high calorific fuel and CO₂
emissions. In melting, preheating, and reheating,
proven oxyfuel technologies are available to
successfully create decarbonisation, using
hydrogen now or later. Oxyfuel solutions can
be applied immediately, and at many steel mills
with very short payback periods.
Numerous tests have been made over the
past 3-4 years using hydrogen as a fuel in
combination with oxyfuel combustion. It has
been concluded that those proven and well-
established solutions, both for conventional
oxyfuel and flameless oxyfuel, work very well
with hydrogen as a fuel. This has been confirmed
in full-scale tests in operation. For example,
to decarbonise the chemical energy input into
EAFs, Linde has developed CoJet injectors with
hydrogen fuel with excellent results (see Figure
3). Hydrogen extends the coherent jet length,
increases heat transfer, and reduces maintenance
of the injectors. These features make hydrogen
an ideal fuel for the CoJet system and pave the
way to fully decarbonise the EAF.
Looking at reheating furnaces, several full-
scale tests have been carried out in production,
and now those flameless oxyfuel technologies
are all hydrogen-ready. The first permanent
installation using 100% hydrogen as fuel in
42
DT6 Linde.indd 42
24 soaking pit furnaces is scheduled to be
commissioned at Ovako Steel in Sweden during
the first half-year of 2023.
Scale and cost of green power supply
To enable the last step of this transition to H₂-
DRI for full decarbonisation, DRI-based steel
production will require very large-scale green
hydrogen and green power. Considering 63 kg/t
of green hydrogen required per tonne of DRI
and 12 kg/t for other heating applications in the
plant, a 2 Mt/a DRI-EAF plant will require about
1.1 GW of green power to produce the required
green H₂, as shown in Figure 4. For reference,
the largest PEM electrolyser in operation today
is 24 MW. Hydrogen suppliers like Linde are
preparing for this scale-up and supply, but the
progress is expected to take time.
Considering an order of magnitude estimate
on the power required to convert all 95 Mt/a
of blast furnace-based ironmaking in Europe
to DRI based, the power required for the
hydrogen electrolyser, as well as the power for
the EAF and other plant operations, would lead
to a green power requirement for integrated
steel production of about 400 TWh/y. Adding
the power requirement for 65 Mt/a of current
EAF steel production, the EU28 green power
requirement for steel will total 470 TWh/a
(54 GW), or around 17% of Europe’s current
power consumption.
In addition to large-scale hydrogen supply,
the economics of this transition will require
green hydrogen prices to drop significantly
below current levels. Naturally, the higher the
cost of CO₂ emissions (taxes, allowances), the
higher the price that makes the economics of
this transition to H₂-DRI favourable. Indeed, a
combination of increasing cost of CO₂ emissions
and decreasing H₂ pricing will be necessary to
achieve economical decarbonisation.
For green hydrogen from electrolysis, the
cost is predominantly dependent on the cost
of renewable energy. With a stable, low-cost
supply of renewable energy, a viable supply of
hydrogen can be put in place using electrolyser
technology. We can then conceive a plant
producing green steel, including hydrogen-based
DRI production, EAF steelmaking supplied with
renewable power, and all combustion processes
using energy-efficient oxyfuel with hydrogen
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
19/10/2022 15:08:09
 Green power Green H2 offtake
(optional)

Green H2

Battery
e- limit

Linde
Power system Electrolysis
Reheat
furnace
Vent EAF
DRI
Linde O2 compression/
treatment

Green O2
Linde Cojet System Linde REBOX Hyox
H2 burners H2 burners
Green O2 offtake
(optional)
Linde technology

For full decarbonisation of 2 Mt/y steel plant with 100% DRI: H2 and O2 consumption per tonne of rolled steel
H2 and O2 production DRI EAF Reheat Total

Electrolyser capacity 1.1 GW H2, kg/t 63 3 9 75

H2 production 210,000 Nm3/h
O2, kg/t 0-55 45 40 85-140
O2 production 100,000 Nm3/h 30% of electrolyser O2 production is used,
70% potentially for other offtakers

Figure 4 Integrated green steel production ecosystem

as a fuel. As the electrolyser produces both
hydrogen and oxygen, we would then have a
complete integrated system. However, such a
plant can also serve in a hub where additional
production of hydrogen and oxygen are supplied
to neighbouring off-takers.
Summary
The steel industry can decarbonise significantly
with hydrogen steelmaking or CO₂ capture and
sequestration where feasible. However, these
approaches are longer-term (beyond the year
2030) solutions that are not sustainable today
due to the capital and operating cost impacts on
steelmakers. For them to become sustainable
or viable, we need a combination of higher
costs of CO₂ emissions, plus a well-developed
infrastructure to supply low-cost renewable
power and hydrogen at a very large scale.
Steelmakers can take short-term steps
with incremental and stepwise sustainable
decarbonisation approaches that are affordable
today. Energy efficiency improvements with
oxyfuel combustion – with fossil fuel savings
of 20-60% – offer immediate CO₂ reductions
with low Capex commitments on several unit
processes. Proven oxyfuel-based solutions can
reduce the steel industry’s CO₂ emissions by 200
Mt/a. Integrated steel mills can decarbonise by
raising blast furnace tuyere injectant levels using
external gasification, increasing the scrap ratio in
converters, and charging DRI/HBI produced by the
gasification of low carbon footprint feedstocks and
alternate fuels such as coke oven gas.
Joachim von Schéele
joachim.von.scheele@linde.com

www.decarbonisationtechnology.com 43

DT6 Linde.indd 43 19/10/2022 15:08:10

watlow.indd 1 19/10/2022 13:16:24
 The heat-pump way to more
sustainability
The heat pump as an industrial technology has been mature for decades, but
only now with sustainability demands and price of fossil fuels is it coming of age
Rasmus Rubycz
Atlas Copco Gas and Process
T
he industrialisation of much of the world
over the past few centuries has been
predicated on an abundance of fossil fuels
as energy sources. And until the last 40 or 50
years, whether coal, oil, or natural gas, this was
hardly seriously questioned. It is easy to figure
out why: cheap energy powered the modern
world and helped develop modern consumer
societies, first in Europe and the US, then further
afield. There was, however, a major price to pay:
burning fossil fuels to power modern industry is
the main cause of climate change, experienced
in extreme weather, poor air quality, and species
extinction across the planet.
Nevertheless, if albeit belatedly, attitudes
to fossil fuel use are changing, and not just
because climate demonstrations have put
greater pressure on governments, businesses,
and industries. For the first time in modern
history, the goals of many politicians, business
leaders, and climate activists are aligning: the
consensus is that green sources of energy
must replace fossil fuels if we are to continue to
power modern societies.
At the same time, the reasons and motivations
underpinning this growing consensus vary, with
some people more concerned about protecting
the planet, for example, and others more
focused on the continued existence of a specific
business or business model. But whatever the
reason, they all agree that the result must be
a rapid transition to a more sustainable way
of living.
End dependence on fossil fuels
While notions of sustainability have long
underscored the reasons for providing green
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
DT6 atlas copco.indd 45
energy sources, more recently it has also
become about efforts to minimise the effect
of geopolitical crises, volatile prices, and
disruptions to fuel imports. Green hydrogen, for
example, is one much-touted alternative energy
source, something frequently depicted as a
transformative solution to help end dependence
on fossil fuels. Often overlooked, however, is
that it is produced from electricity with high
energy losses, and it still requires greater
efficiencies before its wide-scale deployment.
Similarly overlooked is that in many situations
heat pumps can do the job as well as hydrogen
does, and even increases in electrolyser
efficiency will not change this fact.
That is not to downplay the potential of
hydrogen, and there are many industrial
applications for which it can be used sensibly,
such as with high temperatures for combustion,
direct chemical reaction, or long-term energy
storage. Indeed, the decentralised production of
hydrogen on-site in chemical and petrochemical
production plants offers upcoming opportunities
to not only use the produced green hydrogen,
but also to use the unavoidable waste heat.
Temperature disparity
While there are industries and processes that
require high temperatures, there is also a lot
of demand for energy below such high levels.
Unfortunately, we usually use extremely hot
flames to generate even low temperatures,
even though it is not necessary. Temperatures
of only 100-250°C are required in paper
production, district heating, the food industry,
and parts of the chemical industry, for example
(see Figure 1).
45
19/10/2022 15:16:40
 100% Waste heat sources Industrial heat demand 100%

75% Food sector 75%

Paper sector
Waste heat (MWh)

Chemical sector
50% Refinery sector 50%

25% 25%

0% 0%
20 60 100 140 180 200 20 60 100 140 180 200
Tw (˚C) Waste heat temperature Tw (˚C) Process heat temperature

Figure 1 Industrial waste heat sources vs process heat temperature demand per industry sector

Because in many situations there is a
disparity between the temperatures used and
those actually required, the potential of heat
pumps is gaining greater attention. A heat
pump functions in a similar way to a normal
refrigerator (see Figure 2): a liquefiable gas (the
refrigerant) is evaporated in a cyclic process
at low pressure, compressed in a compressor,
and condensed at a higher pressure. A
pressure reduction component, such as an
expansion valve, closes the cycle, while during
evaporation the refrigerant absorbs heat,
typically from inside the refrigerator or from
a low-temperature environmental or process
heat source. The gaseous refrigerant condenses
after compression at high pressure and high
temperature. In the case of the refrigerator,
this heat is released into the ambient air. With
a heat pump, this heat is put to practical use,
Process heat
High
temperature
vapour
Condenser
Compressor
Electricity
Evaporator
Low
temperature
vapour
Waste heat
Figure 2 Typical setup of a single-stage heat
pump
ranging from process heat to district and
domestic heating.
The COP and getting the most from the
electricity
One significant advantage of the heat pump is
that it generates much more usable heat from
the same amount of electricity compared to
other technologies. In fact, no CO₂ is emitted
if green electricity from the sun, wind, water,
nuclear power, or other sources is used.
It works by the heat being loaded into a
refrigerant and raised to a higher temperature
level using additional energy. The ratio of
electricity used to usable heat is referred to
as COP (coefficient of performance), and for a
heat pump it typically means that 2-4 kWh of
heat can be pumped with 1 kWh of electricity.
Electric heaters have a COP of 1, and the
electrolysis and combustion of hydrogen are
typically 0.6, mainly due to losses in electrolysis
Q OUT
= COP (see Table 1).
W IN
High
temperature
liquid
The long farewell to fossil fuels
The first large-scale heat-pump installations
Expansion were operated in Switzerland, back in 1938,
valve and they provided a solution to minimising
dependence on imported coal, which resonates
Low with the current challenge.
temperature
liquid/vapour Heat pumps offer enormous potential to
save CO₂, as seen in Scandinavia today, where
several large Atlas Copco Gas and Process
heat pumps using turbocompressors have
operated since the 1980s. The setup works with

46 www.decarbonisationtechnology.com

DT6 atlas copco.indd 46 19/10/2022 15:16:41

 Heat pump Driver Motor
1 kWh 0.95 kWh 2-4 kWh
Transition grid electricity “COP” usable heat
losses
Hydrogen 0.7 kWh H2 0.6 kWh
1 kWh
Electrolyser & Combustion in
Transport boiler

Electrical heater
1 kWh 0.95 kWh 0.95 kWh
Transition grid electricity Use in direct heater heat
losses
Table 1 Efficiency comparison in terms of heat transformation (hydrogen vs heat pumps vs
electrical heater)

wastewater from a sewage treatment plant
which acts as the heat source, while the heat
sink is the urban district heating system. The
systems have thermal outputs of over 60 MW
per unit.
Furthermore, two Atlas Copco Gas and Process
heat pumps installed in Stockholm’s heating
network, each with 40 MW thermal output, save
90,000 metric tons of CO₂ emissions annually
(compared to the previous use of heating oil).
To achieve a comparable saving in road traffic, it
would mean that the average Swedish gasoline-
powered car would have to drive 500 million
fewer kilometres every year.
typically between 80 and 250°C. At the same
time, low-temperature waste heat is available
in all production plants, which is rejected via
cooling towers. From an energy point of view,
this conventional use of heat is an open process
that can be converted into an energy circular
economy using a heat pump.
But it is not just in the realm of industrial
production where heat pumps are employed.
In fact, there are more heat sources that are
readily available, which may not be immediately
recognisable as such: municipal sewage
treatment plants, and hydrogen electrolysis

Conversion to energy circular economy

From the many application segments in
which heat pumps are used, five stand out:
the production of paper, food, chemicals/
petrochemicals, the aforementioned district
heating, and more general manufacturing where
heat is required. The required heat for these is

Figure 4 An integrally geared compressor

Figure 3 One of the world’s first large-scale deployed as an industrial heat pump in a district
heat pump installations, in Switzerland in 1938 heating system, using cleaned sewage water as
(Photo credit: Baudirektion Kanton Zurich, Switzerland, 2007) a heat source in Stockholm, Sweden

www.decarbonisationtechnology.com 47

DT6 atlas copco.indd 47 19/10/2022 15:16:41

 Fossil-fuel driven
100% Flue gases Waste heat
CO2 emissions 10% Process 100%
heat Heat-pump driven
100%
Process heat Waste heat
100% 25%
0% - 33%
Fossil fuel CO2 emissions
110% Steam boiler Process Vs
( =
Process heat
Fossil fuel
= 90% ( Example using a heat pump

Valid for hydrogen as well if used as fuel gas (COP =

Process heat
Electric power
> 4.0 ( Process
Electric power
25% COP = Coefficient Waste-heat recovery
of performance 75%

Figure 5 Efficiency comparison of heat transformation industrial heat pump vs fossil fuels

plants, for example, represent a continuous
flow of low-temperature heat that can be made
usable again. Moreover, new megawatt-scale
electrolysers are being installed almost weekly
in many places around the globe, representing
a huge, untapped potential of low-grade
waste heat.
Example: chemical industry
An example from the chemical industry
highlights the possibility of smoothly integrating
a heat pump into existing systems: In the
industrial production of bioethanol, the ethanol/
water mixture obtained through fermentation
is separated by a multistage distillation at
approximately 80 to 100°C. The distillation
column is usually heated with low-pressure
steam generated from natural gas in a power
plant or boiler. The purified ethanol steam is
then condensed in a water-cooled condenser
and the heat is released into the environment
via cooling towers.
The heat from condensing the ethanol can be
transferred into the circuit of a heat pump, and
the heat from the distillation can be fed back in
as usable heat. A temperature rise from 70°C to
110°C can result in a COP of 4, while thermal
outputs of up to approximately 50 MW can be
achieved for each machine.
Example: hydrogen electrolysis
No system has perfect efficiency, and this holds
especially true for large-scale electrolysis in
the production of green hydrogen. A typical
hydrogen plant using modern electrolyser
technology reaches efficiencies between 60 and

25%
Waste heat

+ –

100% Electrolyser 75%

Renewable electricity Energy stored in H2

Figure 6 Even the most advanced commercially available hydrogen electrolysers can turn only 75%
of the input electricity into chemical energy in the form of hydrogen

48 www.decarbonisationtechnology.com

DT6 atlas copco.indd 48 19/10/2022 15:16:41


+ –
Vacuum
steam
generator
Cooling
Electrolyser water
Figure 7 A smart combination of low-pressure steam generator and multistage steam compressor
can upcycle electrolyser waste heat to usable levels
75%, while most advanced designs reach up
to 75%
Similar to many other technical and
thermodynamic processes, hydrogen
electrolysers become more efficient with
rising operational temperatures. This is due
to the fact that the water molecules already
contain a higher inherent thermal energy. The
added electrical energy required to split it into
hydrogen and oxygen is consequently lower.
Efficiencies higher than 80% are possible with
high-temperature solid-oxide electrolysers.
And the high-operational temperature allows
the direct integration of the resulting waste
heat into existing process plants in the form of
pressurised steam.
However, while this technology is a
promising development for high-temperature
electrolysers in the years to come, the race is
already on today for installing megawatt-scale
hydrogen electrolysers using mature PEM
(polymer electrolyte membrane) or alkaline
electrolysis technology. The predominant
PEM technology achieves 60-75% efficiency
at operational temperatures below 100°C.
The name-giving polymer layer in the cell
stack will degrade more rapidly if exposed
to higher temperatures, preventing, in many
cases, the useful utilisation of the unavoidable
waste heat.
As global green hydrogen production ramps
up, so will waste heat. It is noteworthy that – in
the case of green electricity – this heat is carbon
free. In industry in particular, upcycling this
stream represents an easy way to exploit the
full potential of the hydrogen economy: on the
one hand, replacing fossil fuels with hydrogen
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
DT6 atlas copco.indd 49
1-20 bar(g) saturated steam
Boiler feed water
LP MP HP
Gearbox
Boiler
feed water
Multisectional steam compressor
where really necessary (such as in furnaces,
cement, and metallurgy); and on the other hand,
replacing fossil-fuel generated steam with
hydrogen ‘green steam’ from the waste heat of
the electrolysis.
With waste-heat temperatures of PEM
electrolysers just high enough, the technology
of Atlas Copco Gas and Process can efficiently
provide the required lift that turns the waste into
valuable process energy: pressurised steam (see
Figure 7).
Surprisingly, the process of turning the waste
heat into pressurised steam starts at below
atmospheric pressure. Due to this steam
generation process under vacuum, it is possible
to turn even such low temperatures, such as
that produced by a PEM electrolyser, into the
input stream of a steam compressor.
The proven integrally geared radial
compressor technology, used for multistage
steam compression, upcycles the given low-
temperature waste heat up to the desired
steam pressure. The oftentimes feared ingress
of air into a steam system is prevented by
advanced shaft-sealing systems and decades
of experience in the design and production of
steam compressors with below-atmospheric
suction conditions.
Due to individual compressor stages, mounted
on the integral gearbox, multiple interstage
steam cooling (also called desuperheating) by
water injection is possible. This reduces the
thermal stress on components, increases the
steam mass flow, and supports a more efficient
compression process. Even systems with steam
extraction on intermediate pressure levels can
be realised due to the possibility of fitting every
49
19/10/2022 15:16:41
 Electrolyser power rating 10,000 kW el.
PEM Electrolyser
H2 production 180 kg/h
Waste heat at 80ºC 2,500 kW
Steam output 5barg (170°C) 5,100 kg/h
Steam compressor driver power 1,OOO kW
COP (Coefficient of Performance) 3.0
Table 2 Overview of possible performance figures for a steam generation system, applied to
commercial, high-efficiency PEM electrolyser waste heat streams
stage with an individual load control device, the
inlet guide vane mechanism.
Assuming as starting conditions typical PEM
electrolyser waste-heat temperatures, Atlas
Copco Gas and Process compressors can
efficiently pressurise steam up to 20 bar(g).
Using water steam not only as a heat carrier
but also as a working fluid in a heat pump
offers additional beneficial aspects: water is a
fluid with no negative aspects, it is abundant,
low cost, and neither toxic nor flammable. In
addition, the resulting COP and possible output
temperature are very high in comparison with
other heat pump technologies and commonly
used refrigerants.
Table 2 shows typical steam-compressor-
system parameters, assuming typical PEM
electrolysers of 10, 25, and 100 MW power
Figure 8 Cross-section of an integrally geared
compressor core
50
DT6 atlas copco.indd 50
25,000 kW el. 100,000 kW el.
PEM Electrolyser PEM Electrolyser
450 kg/h 1,800 kg/h
7,500 kW 25,OOO kW
15,OOO kg/h 49,200 kg/h
2,600 kW 8,400 kW
3.3 3.4
ratings as the waste heat source. The waste
heat at 80°C is turned into 170°C/5 barg steam,
which represents a typical utility-steam level in
the industry.
With COPs higher than 3, the system enables
efficient upcycling of the waste heat. As a rule
of thumb, the steam compressor uses 10%
additional power to enable full utilisation of the
unavoidable by-product.
Especially when the electrolyser is part of a
larger production facility, such as refineries or
chemical plants, steam, at the right pressure,
can simply be fed into the existing distribution
network. Furthermore, it enables the use
of electrolyser waste heat in existing high-
temperature district heating networks in a
simple way.
Proven turbocompressor technology
The optimisation of industrial heat pumps,
whether using refrigerants or water steam, is a
system with a number of variables. Continuously
operating production processes in industry
require maximum reliability and economy, for
example, while turbomachines are vital for
larger outputs.
Integrally geared turbocompression has long
been a proven technology, and it comes with
the desired high performance, reliability, and
cost attributes. Designed to be flexible, it can
have arrangements of up to eight individual
compressor stages on a gearbox (see Figure 8),
as well as the possibility of multiple interstage
cooling. And especially in the case of heat
pumps with large temperature lifts, an integrally
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
19/10/2022 15:16:42
 350+

Heat sink temperature (˚C)

300

250

200

150

100

50
0 25 50 75 100 150 200 250 300
Heat source temperature (˚C)

Inert gas Carbon dioxide

(nitrogen, argon) Natural hydrocarbons
Water & ammonia

Figure 9 Close-up of turbocompressor inlet Figure 10 ‘Sweet spots’ for refrigerants in terms
guide vanes of specific temperature ranges

geared turbocompressor brings significant COP
results, even though the machine setup remains
simple because only one drive motor is required.
Compressor stages can be precisely controlled
via inlet guide vanes to compensate for
fluctuations in heat demand. Due to this entirely
mechanical control, expensive power electronics
for speed control can be dispensed with in
most cases. Especially in critical applications in
large production plants, a simple, mechanical
power and capacity control is usually a
preferred option.
Customised systems welcome
Nevertheless, heat pump technology is reliant
on refrigerant, whose beneficial properties
enable the required high COP values.
Many systems with lower performance use
components from the HVAC (heating, ventilation
& air conditioning) industry, which is why
established, latest-generation refrigerants such
as HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons) like R1233zee
and R1234yf are also used here.
There are, however, potential issues regarding
the environmental impact and future phase-
outs of some refrigerants. In addition, with
filling quantities in the ton scale, the high price
of HFCs is accompanied by their heavy weight.
In contrast, natural hydrocarbons in the form of
liquefied petroleum gas/LPG are freely available
and low cost. For these reasons, Atlas Copco
Gas and Process heat pump compressors use
natural refrigerants, specifically hydrocarbons,
water, inert gases (nitrogen and argon), and
carbon dioxide (though, if requested, machines
with HFCs and ammonia as the working fluids
are also available) (see Figure 10).
Summary
There are three obvious reasons for using heat
pumps: CO₂ emissions reduction, cost reduction
(fuel savings, CO₂ emission certificates, tax
breaks, and so on), and security of supply. The
heat pump as an industrial technology has
been mature for decades, but it has existed for
years in the shadow of fossil fuels due to what
appeared to be a lack of need. Now, however,
with sustainability demands and the price of
fossil fuels, it is fair to say that the age of the
heat pump is beginning.
Moreover, regardless of the motivation behind
the investment decision for an industrial heat
pump, in the end it is a further step towards
the decarbonisation of industry, and this is
something urgently needed to meet the goals of
the Paris Agreement.
Rasmus Rubycz
rasmus.rubycz@atlascopco.com

www.decarbonisationtechnology.com 51

DT6 atlas copco.indd 51 19/10/2022 15:16:42

 ENERGY TRANSITION TO
REFINING TRANSFORMATION
What does it mean to be part of the global energy transition?
At Grace it means transforming the way we support the
petroleum refining industry for a more sustainable future.
Let’s collaborate on the next wave of FCC technology.

Contact your Grace

representative today.

grace.com

grace.indd 1 28/07/2022 10:25:40

 Creating value from wastes to
help achieve net zero
Transport fuels and circular economy products from wastes are essential
ingredients in the energy transition journey towards net zero
Mark Whittle
Greenergy
A
s part of the UK Government’s roadmap
to net zero, the sale of new petrol and
diesel cars and vans will be banned from
2030. Hybrids and some heavy goods vehicles
(HGVs) will follow in 2035, with all conventional
vehicles banned from 2040. UK consumers are
taking note of this legislative change. In 2021
alone, 190,000 electric vehicles (EVs) were sold,
more than the combined sales of EVs in the
previous five years (SMMT, 2022). Today, one in
eight new cars sold are EV (SMMT, 2022) and
the figure will progressively rise in the coming
years, but will it be at a rate to meet the fast-
approaching net-zero deadline? Are battery-
powered vehicles going to be the solution to
transition to net zero?
EVs can only be part of the solution. HGVs
are one of the most difficult transport sectors to
decarbonise, with electrification and hydrogen
solutions only possible in some applications in
the mid to long term. We cannot ignore the huge
challenges in electrifying larger and HGVs and
the constraints in power generation, distribution
infrastructure, and the raw materials needed to
produce EVs. Also, with the average lifespan of a
passenger car of scrappage at around 14 years
(SMMT, 2022), it is important we acknowledge
that vehicles powered by gasoline and diesel will
be on the road for some time following the ban.
So, the question is, what more can be done
during the transition period to accelerate
decarbonisation?
One answer is biofuels. Biofuels have
played an important and increasing role in the
decarbonisation of vehicle emissions. Given
their success in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions from road transport, there is an
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
DT6 Greenergy.indd 53
increased focus on how biofuels can be deployed
into other modes of transport, including maritime
and aviation as well as road.
For some time, biofuels will remain one of the
most readily deployable, scalable, and renewable
options available; however, current biofuel
production is not enough to achieve net zero.
New approaches and new advanced biofuels will
be needed to meet the demand for low-carbon
fuels during the transition period.
Background
For 30 years Greenergy has been working
on cleaner road fuels and producing biofuels.
We have become an industry leader in the
development of waste-based fuel solutions
for transport, producing biodiesel from used
cooking oil.
Greenergy’s original low-sulphur fuel changed
the standard for diesel fuel products for road
transport in the 1990s, reducing harmful air
pollutants and driving real carbon emission
reductions. Today, we are Europe’s largest
manufacturer of waste-based biodiesel and are
now applying our expertise to the broader waste-
to-renewables sector through projects that
support decarbonisation and enable net zero. The
challenge is to continue to innovate and produce
low- and no-carbon fuels and renewables that
can be supplied at scale.
Our current focus is on broadening the range
of waste feedstocks, and how best to bring
them into the circular economy and repurpose
wastes such as used cooking oil, tyres, household
waste, and plastics to create next-generation
renewables, transitioning from waste to energy to
waste to X.
53
19/10/2022 15:19:00
 Utilising waste feedstocks, we can make a
significant positive environmental impact and
contribution to the circular economy by creating
value through developing solutions to reduce
carbon emissions and waste overall. Repurposing
waste products also reduces our reliance on
the current approaches of adding to landfill,
exporting wastes, or using waste to generate
electricity. Our experience in efficiently delivering
products of this kind ensures that these potential
renewable solutions can be adopted at scale with
security of supply and domestic production.
Renewables from waste tyres
One of the projects we are actively developing
utilises the traditionally environmentally
troublesome waste stream of end-of-life tyres as
a feedstock.
Every year, some 1.5 billion tyres worldwide
come to the end of their useful lives (Williams,
2017), and this will not change with the switch to
electric vehicles. Tyres are difficult to recycle and
are non-biodegradable. As such, a new approach
is required to deal with the waste tyres thrown
away and in need of disposal each year. In the
UK, some 55 million waste tyres are disposed of
annually, either by burning them here in the UK
or exporting them, and this is not a sustainable
or responsible solution when considering the
valuable products that are intrinsically held in this
waste stream (Hartnell, 2022).
With a site in Teesside under development
and the engineering FEED phase underway,
Greenergy’s Green Tyre Technology (GTT) project
is integrating conventional, commercially proven
processes and technologies to transform tyres
into transport fuels such as lower carbon diesel
as well as carbon black that can be reused in tyre
production. This large-scale project will create a
significant environmental improvement compared
to the current disposal of waste tyres. The plant
will utilise existing and proven technologies from
world-renowned partners to produce a waste-
to-value solution based on years of development
and testing to prove each aspect and the process
as a whole.
The GTT project will recycle waste tyres
from the UK market and create valuable end-
use materials, including advanced diesel,
naphtha for advanced gasoline blending or
as a petrochemical feedstock, low-sulphur
54
DT6 Greenergy.indd 54
marine fuel for blending, and at the same time
producing a recovered carbon black (rCB) for
reuse in the tyre manufacturing process, creating
a circular economy. Supplying the naphtha to
petrochemicals to make new tyres or green
plastics also supports a circular economy.
The planned facility will be capable of
processing up to 155,000 tonnes of tyres per
year, using five pyrolysis reactor trains, making it
the largest tyre pyrolysis facility in the UK.
To help deliver the project, Petrofac, a leading
international engineering and construction (EPC)
service provider, is undertaking the engineering
FEED contract to design the plant and develop
a turn-key engineering, procurement and
construction contract. Having previously
delivered pyrolysis plants at scale, thyssenkrupp*
has been engaged to deliver the pyrolysis
technology and brings extensive experience in
the oil and gas sector.
The process
At the facility, tyres will be shredded and
mulched, and the tyre mulch is then fed into the
thyssenkrupp pyrolysis system. This process heats
the feedstock in an oxygen-free atmosphere, so
there is no combustion, thermally decomposing
the mulch into solid, liquid, and gas phases.
Tyre-derived oil (TDO) is separated and
extensively treated using proprietary technology
to remove solids and other contaminants
before being treated in a dedicated on-site
hydroprocessing plant to refine and enhance
the properties of the oil products, enabling the
diesel product to meet UK diesel standards.
Testing calculations show 85% savings in GHG
emissions compared to fossil diesel, easily
surpassing the 65% GHG threshold required
for development fuels under UK legislation (UK
Gov, 2007).
The hydroprocessing removes sulphur and other
contaminants from the oil before it is separated
into various product streams. This process will
produce diesel, naphtha, and marine fuel, each
containing significant biogenic fractions derived
from the natural rubber used in tyre production.
The heaviest product stream is a ultra low-
sulphur marine fuel blending component, which
will help reduce emissions in the hard-to-
decarbonise marine sector as it looks to transition
to net carbon zero fuels.
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
19/10/2022 15:19:00

Used
cooking oil
Renewable off-gas
Steam
methane
Tyre reformer
mulch
Hydrogen
Condenser/decanter
Vapour Syngas
Pyrolysis Gas clean up (H2S)
Char Milling
Figure 1 Simplified process flow
The solids product is a char, largely made of
pure carbon, which is further processed through
milling and pelletising into a high-quality carbon
black, which can then be reused in the production
of new tyres and other rubber products,
supporting a circular economy.
As shown in Figure 1, the plant will
additionally process used cooking oil (UCO)
and tallow into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF)
or hydrogenated vegetable oil (HVO) and bio-
naphtha with relevant supply and off-take
agreements with Greenergy, further supporting
the decarbonisation of transport. The two
hydroprocessing units are complimentary to one
another and will leverage shared infrastructure
and Greenergy’s expertise in UCO supply and
processing to create opportunities for efficiency
gains and cost reduction.
The GTT project will be the largest waste-to-
renewable fuel facility in the UK and will be built
on 40 acres of reclaimed land at Seal Sands, near
Stockton on Tees in the North East of England.
The area is already a hub for renewables, and the
site is near one of Greenergy’s existing biodiesel
facilities and the adjacent fuel terminals and
import/export infrastructure. The facility is due to
be operational in 2026.
Regulatory environment
In the UK, the percentage of sustainable biofuel
that fuel suppliers are obligated to blend into
their gasoline and diesel is mandated under the
Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO),
and that percentage will continue to increase
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
DT6 Greenergy.indd 55
Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF)
or Hydrogenated vegetable
Used cooking oil oil (HVO)
(UCO)
hydro-processing
Hydrogen Bio-naphtha
Naphtha-petchem
or gasoline
Tyre-derived oil
TDO (TDO) Advanced diesel
hydro-processing
ULSFO
Syngas
Thermal converter Heat (recycled)
Pelletising Recovered carbon black (rCB)
year on year until 2032. As part of this obligation,
the RTFO also requires that a growing percentage
of biofuel must be classed as development fuels to
receive Development Renewable Transport Fuel
Certificates (dRTFCs). dRTFCs are defined as new
types of advanced biofuels made from sustainable
wastes and residues. They are required to have a
GHG savings threshold of at least 65% and have
been introduced to incentivise innovation, such as
our waste tyre project.
Conclusion
Greenergy’s GTT is a platform to transition into
the next generation of waste utilisation, creating
value, producing circular products for industry,
and producing low-carbon fuels. It shows how
we can further support our customers through
the energy transition and contribute to the circular
economy by undertaking projects that reduce
and recycle wastes to create new forms of next-
generation renewables for use in the transport
sector and wider economy. By utilising expert
technology suppliers and experienced engineering
companies, we are creating projects that can be
delivered and truly help to decarbonise fuel and
other industries.
* thyssenkrupp Mining Technologies GmbH was acquired by FLSmidth
A/S on 31 August, 2022. All “thyssenkrupp” and “tk Mining” brand
names will be replaced by “FLSmidth” during 2022.
VIEW REFERENCES
Mark Whittle
mark.whittle@greenergy.com
55
19/10/2022 15:19:00
 DECARBONIZATION
SHOULDN’T FEEL
FRUSTRATING.
THE ANSWER IS HERE.

Want reduced emissions with a reduced

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Produce blue hydrogen with existing natural gas

infrastructure to minimize time and money spent on
decarbonization.

Want to start your energy transition?

Topsoe is here for how, ready now.

Visit us: topsoe.com/bluehydrogen

topsoe.indd 1 28/07/2022 10:22:34

 Conversion to a green refinery
Assessing the options, risks, and viability of the biofuels refinery of the future

Scott Sayles and Robert Ohmes

Becht

I
n order to meet the mandates of the Paris requirements on the utility and logistics systems
accord, as well as carbon intensity and will be addressed, as these areas not only offer
greenhouse gas emission reductions in further opportunities to meet sustainability
traditional refining processes, fossil fuel-based targets but, if not managed properly, can
transportation fuels will be substituted by a also adversely affect a project’s operational
combination of electric vehicles, bio-derived, viability. A series of use cases, along with real-
and renewable fuels. Existing refining and world experience, will be used to examine
petrochemical assets are seen as key elements various scenarios and provide key learnings to
in the energy transition equation, as much of the energy entities.
current processing and distribution infrastructure
can be repurposed for this new reality. This Framing renewable fuels challenge
change in the marketplace will drive traditional The regulatory environment provides the
refiners to examine processing and configuration economic structure for the viable conversion of
options to align with the new feedstock and fossil fuel refineries into biorefineries. The biofuels
product profiles as well as energy input options. refinery of the future will initially build upon the
Those entities that are able to meet the changes refineries of the present, which will radically
in this dynamic market while remaining profitable change into the refinery of the future. Existing
will continue as viable enterprises. refineries all have different unit configurations
This article will outline the various processing and capabilities that make conversion to a
schemes, available technologies, feed and biorefinery more or less feasible. For example, a
product possibilities, risk profiles, and optionality simple hydroskimming refinery will require more
that exist to assist energy firms in their decision- capital investment than a full conversion refinery
making process. In addition, the impacts and to transition into a biofuels facility. In general, the

100%
Conversion to biorefinery Scope 1, 2 & 3
Progress to conversion from fossil

Scope 2
fuel refinery to biofuel refinery

Zero carbon emissions

Scope 1
r The final biofuel refinery configuration
re fo
u ns g is dependent on the feeds and
pt i o
a at sin
nc er ces transportation fuel slate.
bo s i d
ro Biomass preprocessing is critical.
ar on e p
tc n c abl Siting of the preprocessing system,
os g n
p si w io
e or De rene l e ct field or refinery?
Pr se Types of feeds seed oil, celluloses,
ck
s to pyrolysis?
ed
Fe
0%
2022 2030 2050
Approach to zero carbon emissions

Figure 1 Roadmap to a biofuel refinery

www.decarbonisationtechnology.com 57

DT6 Becht 1.indd 57 20/10/2022 12:17:31

 more complicated the refinery complex, the easier
the conversion becomes (Rutz, et al., 2020),
(Bacovsky, et al., 2010).
Conversion to a biorefinery will likely follow a
phased approach. The first step in the conversion
is removing carbon from fired sources, while the
reduction of fossil feedstocks and replacement
with biofeeds and renewable sources will occur
over a longer duration.
The biorefinery will combine renewable feed
sources and fossil sources to manage and reduce
Scope 1, 2 and 3 fossil CO₂ emissions (Ohmes, et
al., 2022).
The power requirements of the refinery
will be satisfied from green sources or highly
integrated systems. Electricity will increasingly be
generated from low-carbon sources such as wind
turbines, solar panels, and nuclear energy. The
co-processed steam from gasification or steam
methane reforming (SMR) and/or auto thermal
reforming (ATR) operations will supplant the
steam from on-demand boilers, thereby reducing
fired duty, while hydrogen will replace fossil fuel
combustion in higher-temperature furnaces.
Reducing precombustion emissions entails
removal of carbon from the fuel gas system
using reforming (SMR and ATR) or gasification
technologies (Eide, et al., 2005). The CO₂ from
the reforming processes is captured, and the
hydrogen is used for the downstream fired
sources to produce only water in the flue gas.
Oxygen injection is also possible to increase
the CO₂ in the stack, thereby improving CO₂
removal (Sharma, et al., 2021). Pre-combustion

Post-combustion carbon capture

Absorption Cryogenic Membranes Adsorption

Pressure or temperature Swing Design

Chemical Physical Gas Gas
absorption separation Alumina Zeolite Activated carbon
Amines Dimethyl ethers

Caustic Chilled ammonia

Others Others Post-combustion removes the carbon after burning

Flue gas or vent FG1 FG2 FG3 FG4 FG5 FG5+n

Total FG

Total
flue gas + air
Pre-combustion removes the carbon prior to burning
Unit No 1 2 3 4 5 5+n
Fired heaters Boilers Other sources
CO2 pph R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R5+n

Pre-combustion fuel or combustion gas

Oxygen H2 production

Cryogenic Membranes SMR with Gasification

pure oxygen enriched air CO2 capture

Figure 2 Pre- and post-combustion carbon removal

58 www.decarbonisationtechnology.com

DT6 Becht 1.indd 58 19/10/2022 15:29:59

 configurations are summarised in Figure 2 (Eide,
et al., 2005).
Post-combustion removal uses either chemical
or physical separation technologies to remove the
CO₂ from the flue gases (see Figure 2), (Tellini, et
al., 2011) (Metz, et al., 2005), (Ferguson, 2010),
(Douglas, et al., 2006), (Menon, et al., 2009),
(Miracca, et al., 2009), (Schenk, et al., 2022),
(Kiss, et al., 2016).
Using such carbon capture technologies, the
refinery fired assets will become carbon neutral,
with a limited amount of uncaptured CO₂
formation.
Refining schemes
Biorefinery schemes start with the available
technologies and are feed-dependent, as shown
in Figure 3 (Melero, et al., 2012), (Sayles, et
al., 2022).
The process line-up must be designed for
the types of feedstocks to be processed as
the feedstocks define the renewable feed
processing limitations for each processing
unit. The issues encountered are similar to
the current fossil fuels crude purchasing
optimisation systems. The renewable challenge
is to get feedstock to the processing facilities
on a scalable basis, along with associated costs
and a sustainability basis.
The feeds with longer chain fatty acids favour
diesel, whereas shorter chain feedstocks favour
jet. The ratio of carbon and hydrogen to oxygen
ranges from high for tallow oil to low for tall oil,
which is also more difficult to process (Sayles, et
al., 2022).
Seed oils are the easiest of the potential feeds
and, after proper pretreatment, can be co-
processed in existing refinery hydrotreaters or
the FCC unit. However, these feedstocks are
in competition with the food supply and are
not a viable long-term option. The use of non-
edible feeds requires further consideration to
understand the upgrading options. These are
the third-generation feeds, such as wood waste,
municipal waste, and other renewable non-
edible sources, that do not compete with food
production (Rutz, et al., 2020), (Albrecht, et al.,
2011). These feeds require further upgrading,
and the current challenge is to create sufficient
supply and associated supply chain to bring
those feedstocks to existing refineries or build
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DT6 Becht 1.indd 59
Hydroprocessing
Hydrocracking
Nominal formula (C+H)/O
Suggested
processing
options Catalytic cracking
(FCC) processes
Pyrolysis/thermal
cracking
Expected liquid (Vol % recovery)
Figure 3 Hypothetical renewable diesel liquid vs
carbon efficiency
dedicated renewable processing assets near
existing refineries, as both allow leveraging their
assets and infrastructure.
Feed and product possibilities
A refinery effectively takes low H/C (hydrogen
to carbon) fossil crudes or biomass and converts
them into high H/C ratio products using:
 Hydrogen addition with a hydrocracker or
high-severity hydrotreater
 Carbon rejection with a thermal/FCC unit or
thermal pyrolysis
The following sections will examine various
feedstocks and the technology options for
processing each one:
Triglycerides
A reasonable-scale biofeed facility would be ~15
MBPD, with the range being 5 to 60 MBPD. The
best possible economic outcome is to leverage
existing fossil fuel refineries and the associated
supply chain. The use of existing storage and
transportation to market is desirable.
The feedstocks are different enough in
composition that the feedstock storage
considerations are modified compared to
fossil fuels.
Advanced renewables
Feeds not readily processed using current
technology are considered advanced renewable
feeds, such as:
• Cashew nut oil
• High oleic sunflower oil extract
• Animal fat
• Brown grease
59
19/10/2022 15:29:59
 • Tall oil pitch
• Wastewater oil collections (such as fats, oil and
grease, or FOG)
These feeds are the next-level processing
opportunities as the edible feedstocks are
removed from renewable feed processing.
Lignocelluloses
The lignocellulosic materials are the most difficult
to convert and require pretreating to remove
contaminants prior to entering the refinery.
The woody biomass and waste are the largest
quantity of the lignocellulosic feeds and are
typically pretreated by pyrolysis, gasification,
or hydrothermal liquefaction. These processing
steps are most economically performed at the
site of production due to the large quantiles of
water that would be shipped if the raw wood
waste were moved. The molecular structure
of lignin is complex and constitutes interlinked
aromatic rings by oxygen and hydrogen bonds
(Frey, et al., 2015)
Fast pyrolysis The use of fast pyrolysis converts
biomass into a liquid that is high in water content
and oxygen compounds. Several different
reactors and designs are used to produce
pyrolysis oil. The high aldehyde and phenol
content polymerises and can form a solid within
minutes of heating above 150ºC (Frey, et al.,
2015), (Elliott, 2015), (De Miguel Mercader,
2010). Further processing is required to produce
a stable transportation fuel. The pyrolysis oil and
fossil fuel are incompatible and produce sediment
that fouls equipment when mixed. As this is not
a recommended option, dedicated assets for the
pyrolysis oil will be required.
Gasification Gasification converts all carbon-
containing molecules into H₂, CO, (syngas) and
CO₂ (with other contaminants converted to slag).
The feeds can be solid, liquid, or gas. The
products are further converted to additional
H₂ or, via Fisher-Tropsch reactions, into many
different molecular combinations.
Hydrothermal liquefaction Hydroprocessing
thermal liquefaction (HTL) is an upgrading option
to convert biomass at moderate temperatures
and high pressure via depolymerisation and
deoxygenation to simpler molecules (Frey, et
60
DT6 Becht 1.indd 60
al., 2015), (Jensen, et al., 2015), (Holladay,
2014), (Albrecht, et al., 2011), (Borugadda,
et al., 2020), (Cabrera-Jiminez, et al., 2021),
(Hoffmann, et al., 2014), (Hoffmann, et al.,
2016), (Sharma, et al., 2021), (Calemma, et al.,
2000), (Ramirez, et al., 2017). If not stabilised,
the product polymerises, thereby forming larger
molecules. The product is dehydrated and
hydrogen deficient, with aldehydes and olefins
as primary product content. Water is a key
reactant in the process. Temperatures are 280-
370ºC, and deoxygenation does occur, providing
a product approximating a fossil fuel. Metallurgy
requirements are suitable for 1,500-4,000 psi
units. The product has a high acid level and
chlorides. Product yields are feed-dependent.
An interesting observation is the formation
of asphaltenes in the HTL product (Bjelic, et al.,
2018). This makes the bottoms cut from the HTL
product suitable for a coker feedstock.
Refinery feeds
The refinery will need to process renewable
and fossil feeds in two separate trains. In
general, fossil and renewable feeds are
incompatible, requiring separate processing
until the renewable oxygen content is reduced
to nearly zero. After hydroprocessing or
thermal processing to the point the oxygen is
removed, the streams are compatible and can
be combined. The refinery will need two feed
tankage systems, one for fossil streams and
the other for renewables. Product tankage will
be shared and ‘common’, given the target of
compatibility and adherence to current liquid
fuels product specifications.
Options
The conceptual configuration for the biorefinery
depends on the viewpoint and risk profile of
the operator. The following gives examples of
biorefineries and the progression to the scale
required to meet the current transportation
fuel demand (Holladay, 2014), (Amaroso, et
al., 2013), (Cascone, et al., 2010), (Malode, et
al., 2020).
Fossil processing train
The fossil feed train is the same as the existing
refinery systems of today. No change is
anticipated.
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
19/10/2022 15:29:59

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Rapeseed Tall Oil Used
Feed UOM Soybean Corn Oil Animal Fat
(Canola) Fatty Acid Cooking oil
Alternate name TOFA UCO Tallow
API 21.6 22.0 21.3 18.8 31.1 32.1
Chloride (est) wppm 20 20 20 20 150 20
Moisture (est) wt% 2 2 4 2 2 2
FFA v% 0.5 0.5 12 100 7 15
Sulphur (est) wppm 100 100 100 8 7 15
C wt% 77.0% 77.1% 76.9% 76.2% 75.8% 75.7%
H wt% 12.1% 12.1% 12.2% 12.5% 12.7% 12.6%
O wt% 10.9% 10.8% 10.9% 11.3% 11.4% 11.7%
Total wt% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
Glycerides dist
12:00 wt% 0.30
14:00 wt% 0.50 0.81 3.00
16:00 wt% 10.00 3.49 13.10 4.00 13.84 27.00

16:01 wt% 0.00 0.10 0.61 5.00

18:00 wt% 4.00 0.85 2.30 1.98 25.66 21.00

18:01 wt% 23.00 64.40 28.40 32.00 53.23 41.00
18:02 wt% 53.00 22.30 53.80 50.00 4.75 2.00
18:03 wt% 53.00 8.96 1.30 12.00 0.10 1.00
20:00 wt% 8.00 8.96 1.30 12.00 0.10
20:01 wt% 0.50 0.40 0.40
22:00 wt% 0.50 0.30 0.02 0.30
22:01 wt% 0.50
Total w% 100 100 100 100 100 100

Table 1 Typical renewable feeds

Renewable process train processing together with the use of hydrogen as

The renewable feeds from triglycerides are
processed in a pretreatment unit (PTU), then fed
directly into the hydroprocessing units.
Fractionation of fossil and hydrothermal oil
blends has been successfully demonstrated at
the glassware stage (Holladay, 2014) (Hoffmann,
et al., 2014) (Hoffmann, et al., 2016) (Calemma,
et al., 2000), (Ramirez, et al., 2017).
H₂ demand increase and H₂ supply options
With the expected expansion of renewable feed
a direct fuel, hydrogen generation is anticipated
to increase from the current capacity of 3 billion
scf/day to 11 billion scf/day.
In order to reduce the net CO₂ footprint, there
is a drive to shift hydrogen generation to lower
emission technologies:
• Grey hydrogen is generated from fossil feeds
and results in significant CO₂ emissions (often
from SMR) and, although this is the current
method for incremental hydrogen supply, it is the
least preferred option in the long term

62 www.decarbonisationtechnology.com

DT6 Becht 1.indd 62 19/10/2022 15:29:59


Name Status
Cellulosic biorefinery Demonstration
Corn ethanol Commercial 5,000 to 10,000
Fischer-Tropsch (FT),
Commercial 8,000 to 160,000
Gas to liquid (GTL)
Renewable feed refinery Commercial 10,000 to 60,000
Fossil refinery conversion
Feasibility study
to biorefinery
Table 2
• Blue hydrogen is hydrogen produced from
SMR, but with carbon capture and sequestration
added to reduce the CO₂ emissions from 30%
up to 80%, depending on whether both process
and fired CO₂ are captured
• Green hydrogen is from water electrolysis (see
Figure 4) with power from renewable sources
(wind, solar, tidal) and is one of the preferred
long-term options.
• Red/pink/purple hydrogen is from electrolysis
with power from nuclear-produced electricity
Electrical supply
Refinery electrical needs will be supplied by
green sources (wind, solar, nuclear, hydropower
and tidal). The ability to provide green electricity
enables the refinery to maximise electricity
usage, especially for power requirements,
thereby reducing the fired fuel requirements for
power generation. The use of electric heaters
and boilers is an emerging technology to
‘electrify’ process heat and steam generation
sources.
Logistics
Renewable feeds are much more reactive than
fractions generated from crude oil.
These new feeds contain oxygenate species
(tri-glycerides and organic acids) and reactive
olefins/diolefins that can be biologically
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DT6 Becht 1.indd 63
Size Notional capital cost
Comments
(BPD) ($/BPD)
<5,000 $77,000 to $285,000 US DoE
$16,000 to $34,000 Many sites
China, SASOL, South
Africa, GTL proposed
$70,000 to $410,000
in Louisiana 96,000
BPD, Shell Qatar
Chevron; Rodeo; CA
Refinery & Marathon
$12,000 to $45,000 Dickinson; ND &
Martinez, Ca;
ENI Venice, Italy
Part of the 2050 Zero
All Unknown
CO2 initiative
degraded/oxidised. The breakdown products
can be precursors to both gum/coke formation
and stable emulsion formation. These species
can also have greater corrosion potential,
especially when a small amount of free water is
present. Volatile biological breakdown products
can result in objectionable odours if they are
vented from the tank due to filling or natural
tank breathing (daily temperature cycling).
To minimise renewable feed degradation,
nitrogen blanketing is strongly recommended
for renewable feed tankage, with any venting
routed to flare or vapour management systems.
Additionally, any water level formed at the
bottom of the tank should be monitored and
removed aggressively to avoid formation of
emulsions/solids and initiation of biological
activity in the tank. Depending on the level of
free fatty acids in the feed, upgraded metallurgy
or special coatings may be required to mitigate
against rapid metal loss.
Renewable feeds also often contain high wax
levels, which can solidify at low temperatures.
This situation can require use of external heat
exchangers (with tank mixers/circulation) or
internal heating coils to ensure proper flow
during cold temperature conditions.
Transport of biofeed via railcars will require
loop track and dedicated unloading systems.
Transport via marine vessels or barges
63
19/10/2022 15:29:59

4H+ + 4e– 2H2 2H2O
Cathode
– +
Hydrogen
Membrane
Figure 4 Electrolytic hydrogen
can require specialised heating systems
to manage reasonable flow rates of waxy
renewable feeds.
For significant processing levels of renewable
feeds, truck delivery will require multiple
unloading bays/locations and specific setups for
quality control testing/segregation.
Scenarios and emissions
The different future refinery will operate with
clean fuels utilities and no/limited carbon-fired
sources. Feeds to the biorefineries will be from
non-food sources and require upgrading in
the liquid scenarios. The final scenario utilises
gasification of the biomass and Fisher-Tropsch
to convert the syngas into liquid fuels or other
products (Yanez, et al., 2020), (Kargbo, et al.,
2021), (Freeman, et al., 2013), (Hart, et al.,
2021), (Dhar, et al., 2018).
Separate trains
The separate train scenario utilises the existing
refinery assets and augments them with a new
biomass train. The feeds to the biomass train are
O2 + 4H+ + 4e– one of two types:
Anode  Raw biomass
 Partially upgraded biomass via pyrolysis or
HTL processes (wood waste and algae)
The upgrading systems may be located near
Oxygen
the source of the biomass.
The biofuels train consists of a
hydroprocessing unit to saturate the olefins
and remove the remaining oxygen. The second
stage saturates the aromatics as required to
allow hydrocracking into the desired streams.
Hydroprocessing does not change the chain
length of the carbons or the aromatic side
chains. Therefore, an additional hydroprocessing
step will likely be required to modify the
molecular structure to meet cold flow property
specifications for jet fuel and diesel.
Integrated system
Integration of the biofuels into the fossil
train allows utilisation of the existing refining
equipment. In this configuration, the first unit
saturates and produces feeds for processing in
existing units. Due to the exothermic nature
of the resulting product, some derating of the
existing equipment occurs. The result is a lower
yield of final products.
The expectation is that the processing
selection of the bio-train meets the
requirements for the fossil train. For example,
some of the biofeed might be suitable for
directly charging to the FCC unit (Huber, et al.,
2007), (Melero, et al., 2012). Once processed,
the resulting FCC distillate products can
be charged to the hydrocracker or diesel
hydrotreater and the naphtha range products

A. Separate fossil & B. Integrated system C. Fossil train with

biomass trains biomass gasification
Fossil
Crude Products
Fossil train Fossil
Product distribution

Product distribution

Product distribution

Crude Products Crude Products

train train
Intermediat

Biofuels
gasification
Biofuels Biomass & Fischer- Products
Biomass Products
train Biofuels Tropsch
Biomass train train

Figure 5a Separate fossil and biomass trains 5b Integrated system 5c Fossil train with biomass gasification

64 www.decarbonisationtechnology.com

DT6 Becht 1.indd 64 19/10/2022 15:29:59

 Case name Base fossil 2 Train Integrated Gasifier

Fossil Train Base Same as base Reduced Same as base

Biomass Train Base Low rate Same low rate Many sites
Gasification Train Base N/D N/D Same low rate
Yields
Gasoline Base Base Base Base
Jet Base None None None
Diesel Base None None None
Renewable jet None All Higher than 2 Train All
HVO None All Higher than 2 Train All

Table 3 Yield comparison

used for gasoline production. Some upgrading Conclusions

may be required to the diesel hydrotreater to
allow for isomerisation and mild cracking of the
products to meet final product specifications.
Fossil train with gasification
Use of a gasifier opens up the facility to
process a wide array of biomass. The gasifier
can potentially charge solids, liquids, or gas.
Gasification produces the syngas feed for the
Fischer-Tropsch (FT) section. The FT process is
commercially proven.
An option not explored in this article is the
capability of the syngas to be converted into a
wide array of chemicals and lube oils.
Yield comparison
Each configuration has a unique yield and
quality. All three options are about the same in
terms of yield structure.
The two-train system has the highest overall
liquid yield of the configurations shown. The
integrated system has slightly lower capital
costs but corresponding lower fossil intake
and liquid yields. The gasifier has a slight
advantage in jet and diesel quality at the
expense of a lower liquid yield (Gudde, et
al., 2019), (Melero, et al., 2012), (Lynd, et al.,
2002) (Stockle, 2007), (Cope, 2011), (Tanzil, et
al., 2021).
Yields for the three configurations yields are
shown above in Table 3.
The biorefinery of the future will have a
zero-carbon emission operation with the
potential to produce a yield slate considerably
higher in renewable feed-sourced materials.
The application of pre- or post-combustion
technologies will allow for significant
decarbonisation of Scope 1 and 2 emissions.
Further decarbonisation will occur via the
application of renewable electricity sources to
offset fossil-generated power. The combination
of renewable feedstock and hydrogen generated
from renewable power or with captured CO₂
allows for significant decarbonisation of the
product slate, thereby meeting Scope 3 emission
reduction targets.
Proper handling of the feed materials and the
supply chain and logistics elements will allow
the industry to benefit from existing refining
infrastructure and achieve economies of scale.
As technologies evolve for the preparation of
these biofeeds and conversion applications, the
industry can prepare the required adoption plans
and capital investment projects.
VIEW REFERENCES
Scott Sayles
ssayles@becht.com
Robert Ohmes
rohmes@becht.com

www.decarbonisationtechnology.com 65

DT6 Becht 1.indd 65 19/10/2022 15:30:00

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atlas.indd 1
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17-10-2022 13:12:26
14:04:44
Roadmap to decarbonisation
A look at the roadmap towards decarbonisation by charting new pathways in the
global energy sector
Henrik Larsen
KBR
I
n the quest for decarbonisation, the world
is facing a huge challenge today. To
combat climate change, we must meet the
objectives of the Paris Agreement by limiting
global warming to 1.5ºC. The journey towards
achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 requires
trillions of dollars of investment in technologies
and infrastructure for low-carbon fuels and
electrification to create new pathways for the
global energy sector.
To meet the goals set in the Paris Agreement,
it is estimated that low-carbon fuels will have
to make up more than 10% of the total energy
consumption worldwide. Hydrogen is slated
to play a vital role in decarbonising energy
needs that cannot easily be directly electrified
in shipping, aviation, and heavy industries. It
can be used either as a direct clean fuel, which
upon combustion emits only water, or as the key
building block for other clean fuels like ammonia
and methanol.
The demand for low-carbon hydrogen is
estimated to exceed 500 MMTPA in 2050,
representing a six-fold increase in current
demand. This will require an unprecedented
need for investments in highly efficient and
flexible solutions.
Team effort
Emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic,
which was accompanied by a decrease in CO₂
emissions from 2019 to 2020 of 7-8%, we are
faced with the reality that CO₂ emissions must
be reduced by nearly 6% year-on-year to achieve
the targets in the Paris Agreement. Although
the targets for low-carbon fuels and direct
electrification are relatively clear, getting there
will require a considerable build-up of renewable
energy globally. The IEA estimates it will require
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
double the current annual addition of renewable
energy for the global energy pool. These
investments exclude those needed for a similar
expansion of the electricity grids to carry extra
energy and distribution to additional customers.
Imagine that in 2050, about a billion electric
vehicles (EVs) will be on the roads every day.
Then, imagine the charging infrastructure to
support that. We will need:
• Policies and frameworks that both encourage
the development of infrastructure through
numerous partnerships in the public and private
sectors and jointly support de-risking
• Space to install renewable energy capacity
from solar and wind, with appropriate
allocations/approvals
• Development and support for the frameworks
needed to trade across borders and to enable
the distribution of renewable power to the
sectors required, thereby achieving the required
energy mix in 2050, i.e. energy directed to both
electrification and low-carbon fuels routes
The recently implemented US Inflation
Reduction Act of 2022 is an excellent example
of a framework that aims to encourage further
development in clean energy via a tax credit
scheme, and is expected to have a significant
impact on the development of clean energy
projects in the US. Indeed, we have already
received positive feedback from partners and
clients, stating that this will further boost their
projects moving forward.
Innovation and scale are key
Besides the massive build-up needed for
renewable energy and low-carbon fuels, a
parallel, continuous effort in technological
innovation is needed to reach the net-zero
target. The cost of renewable power has
67
 come down significantly in recent years. This
trajectory must continue with a focus on
production hubs, where economies of scale
are being pursued on an entirely new mega-
scale, both onshore and offshore. For instance,
new energy islands, planned in the North Sea
offshore the coast of Denmark, are targeting
10 GW capacity for each project. Such scale
would require 670 windmills, each standing 270
metres tall, filling the space of more than 60
soccer fields.
Such mega-projects will capture the
advantage of the better wind conditions
offshore and, by going really big, make it
feasible to have an artificial island made for low-
carbon fuels production or even a floating setup.
Mega-projects for solar power or a combination
of both are now frequently announced and
In 2050, it is estimated that
three-quarters of the world’s
hydrogen demand will be
supplied via electrolysis
needed to ensure enough renewable power
going forward. The latter has been boosted by
all the major International Oil Companies (IOCs)
embracing the energy transition.
In 2050, it is estimated that three-quarters of
the world’s hydrogen demand will be supplied
via electrolysis. The rest will be by a combination
of fossil-based production routes with CCS
added plus some nuclear and methane pyrolysis.
Other not yet commercialised routes will take up
an unknown part of the mix.
KBR is collaborating with partners across the
hydrogen value chain, addressing all the routes
mentioned above, to continuously enhance
existing technologies and commercialise new
technologies. We are working with several
global electrolyser producers on balancing
the electrolysis plant, modularisation, and
smart construction when scaling up and using
advanced control tools for optimising the output.
KBR’s proprietary K-Green technology
features advanced process control (APC) and
digital solutions that adapt to the intermittency
of renewable power, allowing for optimal
production of green hydrogen and downstream
68
KBR.indd 68
conversion into ammonia. These will be key to
the efficient conversion of renewable power
to hydrogen and downstream products.
Intermittency is less of a concern when
renewable energy is in the form of hydropower.
The cost of electrolysis will come down due
to further advances in stack production, smart
engineering, and scaling up. The levelised
cost of hydrogen produced via electrolysis will
approach that of fossil-based hydrogen via the
SMR route (with CCS) by 2030 (about a 50%
reduction from that of today) and is expected to
be well below 2 USD/Kg H₂ by 2050.
Two major routes to low-carbon hydrogen
In the longer term, the electrolysis route will
become the main source of hydrogen (often
referred to as green hydrogen), but in the
shorter term the carbon intensity of hydrogen
production from natural gas or other fossil
feedstocks via SMR reforming can also be
reduced using carbon capture. Hence, there will
be a period where we see both new builds of
fossil-based plants and upgrades of existing
plants with carbon capture and advanced forms
of heat exchange. As such, reforming will likely
contribute 20-25% of the total hydrogen market
in 2050. These plants are often referred to as
blue hydrogen plants and can be designed to
capture close to 100% of the CO₂ that would
otherwise be released into the atmosphere.
KBR is heavily involved in developing and
delivering technology for the blue hydrogen
market. Besides offering blue hydrogen via our
proven SMR plus KRES technology scheme with
various CO₂ capture options, we are working
with partners on further advancements in CO₂
capture technologies and usage of the CO₂
captured. This is vital, as these advancements
will be key to lowering the carbon footprint of
existing assets that today have no or limited
carbon capture.
However, both electrolysis and reforming with
carbon capture must overcome challenges:
• Abundant, cheap natural gas for the blue
hydrogen route is not available everywhere,
while optimal CO₂ sequestration options or
immediate usage for large amounts of CO₂
captured must also be considered
• Similarly, a supply of renewable electricity
is critical for the green hydrogen route. Not all
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19/10/2022 15:38:08
countries/regions have suitable solar, wind, or
hydropower supply
Hence, some regions will be highly dependent
on the import of low-carbon hydrogen or
associated low-carbon fuels to cover their future
energy requirements.
Ammonia will be another key molecule
Transport of hydrogen is an important
consideration in assuring a global supply. The
first option is to transport hydrogen in a liquified
form, as has been executed successfully for LNG
over the years. However, the extreme conditions
(temperature and pressure) needed to maintain
hydrogen in a liquified state suggest this is not
feasible for long-distance transportation. Hence,
there is a need for a cost-effective hydrogen
carrier that can be added to the world’s
logistical network relatively easily.
KBR has more than 60 years of experience
handling ammonia and liquid hydrogen.
We believe the ammonia molecule will
become the preferred hydrogen carrier for
long distances, providing cost-effective
hydrogen transportation using an established
infrastructure that can be scaled to future
requirements. This view is supported by many
stakeholders globally, evidenced by the number
of ammonia-related projects currently being
considered worldwide. In fact, DNV predicts
that the global trade of ammonia will increase
up to 150 MTPD, more than six times the
volume traded and shipped today.
However, the conversion from hydrogen to
ammonia does not come without a cost, so the
most efficient and scalable technologies must
be used, irrespective of the source of hydrogen.
KBR’s Purifier/PurifierPlus and K-Green
technologies can efficiently deliver up to 6,000
MTPD of ammonia in a single train layout.
Despite such large scales already being available
and engineered, the predicted demand for
ammonia will require several such mega plants to
come on stream annually through to 2050.
Availing low-carbon hydrogen globally
Even though ammonia is an excellent hydrogen
carrier, it is not always the preferred fuel or
component in the low-carbon value chain; there
will often be a need for cost-efficient conversion
back to hydrogen at the destination of use or
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
further distribution. Hence, disassociation of
ammonia is needed (cracking) to complete the
value chain of low-carbon hydrogen.
Ammonia cracking technology has been
around for decades on a relatively small scale
and often without much focus on efficiency.
Consequently, a step change to better efficiency
and a significant scale-up is needed for the low-
carbon hydrogen value chain to be complete
and feasible. In addition, the technology must be
flexible enough to deliver various purity levels
of hydrogen, ranging from the lowest needed
for industrial fuels processes to the highest
A step change to better efficiency
and a significant scale-up is
needed for the low-carbon
hydrogen value chain to be
complete and feasible
needed for mobility purposes. Launched in 2022
and building on well-known process steps in
ammonia production, KBR’s ammonia cracking
technology provides flexibility in size and purity,
with no additional CO₂ emitted.
We expect to see several of these units in the
coming years at either an end user’s facility or
central locations where large-scale volumes
are distributed over shorter distances via a
dedicated hydrogen pipeline to multiple clients.
Ongoing developments
Achieving net zero will require ongoing
development of existing and new technologies
and a framework to support the investments
needed to build the complexes and
infrastructure to connect it all. We are working
closely with partners in the value chain leading
to low-carbon fuels to ensure our solutions
meet the requirements, and we are committed
to providing reliable and efficient new solutions.
However, the net-zero challenge is immense,
so we are always open to exploring new
partnerships, collaborations, and alliances that
could get us all closer to the target.
Henrik Larsen
technology@kbr.com
69
 Where energies make tomorrow

Inspiring
a cleaner
future
©HafslundOsloCelsio

Technip Energies is a leading engineering and technology company for the energy transition.
Leveraging a 50-year track record, we support a more sustainable world by driving the
decarbonization of the industry with best-in-class technologies, proven experience and
ground-breaking CO2 management strategies. With continuous advancements, we offer our
clients competitive and at-scale carbon capture solutions to derisk investment and enhance
project affordability.
At Technip Energies, we inspire a cleaner tomorrow by reducing carbon emissions today.

technipenergies.com

technip.indd 1 27/07/2022 15:15:00

 Artificial intelligence drives the
way to net zero
AI and smart manufacturing can be used to optimise profits as well as produce
insights into a company’s carbon footprint and accelerate its sustainability
Aaron Yeardley
Tunley Engineering
B
usinesses are responding to the threat
of global warming by quantifying their
carbon footprint and reducing their
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Companies
such as Tunley Engineering aid businesses
in data collection, data analysis, and GHG
reporting before focusing on reducing
emissions from the hotspots calculated in the
business carbon assessment. Consultancy
from Carbon Reduction Scientists at Tunley
Engineering is pivotal for businesses to
accurately measure their emissions because of
the sheer difficulty and expense of measuring
the full extent of their business activities.
The fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0)
is already happening, and it is transforming
the way manufacturing operations are carried
out. Industry 4.0 is a product of the digital
era as automation and data exchange in
manufacturing technologies shift the central
industrial control system to a smart setup
that bridges the physical and digital world,
addressed via the Internet of Things (IoT).
Industry 4.0 is creating cyber-physical
systems that can network a production
process, enabling value creation and real-
time optimisation. The main factor driving
the revolution is the advances in artificial
intelligence (AI) and machine learning. The
complex algorithms involved in AI use the
data collected from cyber-physical systems,
resulting in ‘smart manufacturing’.
The impact that Industry 4.0 will have
on manufacturing will be astronomical as
operations can be automatically optimised to
produce increased profit margins. However,
the use of AI and smart manufacturing can
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
DT6 Tunley.indd 71
also benefit the environment. The technologies
used to optimise profits can also be used to
produce insights into a company’s carbon
footprint and accelerate its sustainability.
Some of these methods are available to help
companies reduce their GHG emissions now.
Other methods have the potential to reduce
global GHG emissions in the future.
Scope 3 identification
Scope 3 emissions are from a company’s
supply chain, both upstream and downstream
activities. This means Scope 3 covers all of a
company’s GHG emission sources except those
directly created by the company and those
created from using electricity. It comes as no
surprise that, on average, Scope 3 emissions
are 5.5 times greater than the combined
amount from Scope 1 and Scope 2 (BSR,
2020). Therefore, companies should ensure
all three scopes are quantitated in their GHG
emissions baseline.
However, in comparison to Scope 1 and Scope
2 emissions, Scope 3 emissions are difficult
to measure and calculate. This is because of
a lack of transparency in supply chains, a lack
of connections with suppliers, and complex
industrial standards that provide misleading
information. The major issues concerning Scope
3 emissions are as follows:
• Reliability of data This includes the variability
in data quality between supply chains and the
uncertainty in carbon emission factors used to
calculate GHG emissions
• Double counting Emissions can easily be
double counted as supply chains of companies
become interconnected. For example,
71
19/10/2022 15:40:37
 transportation of a product for one company
is also transportation of material for another
company
• Fair attribution of total supply chains Given
that the total GHG emissions for a supply
chain have been successfully counted, what
is the fair responsibility of each actor in the
supply chain?
AI-based tools can help establish baseline
Scope 3 emissions for companies as they are
used to model an entire supply chain. The tools
can quickly and efficiently sort through large
volumes of data collected from relevant sensors.
If a company deploys enough sensors across the
whole area of operations, it can identify sources
of emissions and even detect methane plumes
(Seeq, 2022).
Digital twin optimisation
A digital twin is an AI model that works as
a digital representation of a physical piece
of equipment or an entire system. A digital
twin can help the industry optimise energy
management by using the AI surrogate
models to better monitor and distribute energy
resources and provide forecasts to allow for
better preparation.
A digital twin will optimise many sources of
data and bring them onto a dashboard so that
users can visualise it in real-time. For example,
a case study at the Nanyang Technological
University used digital twins across 200
campus buildings over five years and managed
to save 31% in energy and 9,600 tCO₂e. The
research used IES’s ICL technology to plan,
operate, and manage campus facilities to
minimise energy consumption (IES, 2022).
Digital twins can also be used as virtual
replicas of building systems, industrial processes,
vehicles, and many other opportunities. This
virtual environment offers much more testing and
iteration, so that everything can be optimised
towards achieving its best performance. This
means digital twins can be used to optimise
building management, creating smart strategies
that are based on carbon reduction.
Predictive maintenance
Predictive maintenance of machines and
equipment used in industry is now becoming
common practice because it saves companies
72
DT6 Tunley.indd 72
costs in performing scheduled maintenance
or fixing broken equipment. The AI-based tool
uses machine learning to learn how historical
sensor data maps to historical maintenance
records. Once a machine learning algorithm is
trained using historical data, it can successfully
predict when maintenance is required based
on live sensor readings in a plant. Predictive
maintenance accurately models the wear and
tear of machinery that is currently in use.
The best part of predictive maintenance is
that it does not require additional costs for
extra monitoring. Algorithms have been created
that provide accurate predictions based on
operational telemetry data that is already
available. Predictive maintenance combined
with other AI-based methods, such as
maintenance time estimation and maintenance
task scheduling, can be used to create an
optimal maintenance workflow for industrial
processes. Conversely, improving current
maintenance regimes, which often contribute
to unplanned downtime, quality defects, and
accidents, is appealing to everybody.
An optimal maintenance schedule produced
from predictive maintenance prevents work that
is often not required. Carbon savings will be
made via controlling deployment of spare parts,
less travel to the site, and less hot shooting
of spare parts. Intervening with maintenance
only when required and not a moment too late
will save on the use of electricity, efficiency
(by preventing declining performance), and
human labour. Additionally, systems can employ
predictive maintenance on pipes that are liable
to spring leaks, to minimise the direct release
of GHGs such as HFCs and natural gas. Thus, it
has huge potential for carbon savings.
Research has shown that underpinning
the scheduling of maintenance activities on
predictive maintenance and maintenance time
estimation can produce optimal maintenance
scheduling (Yeardley, Ejeh, Allen, Brown, &
Cordiner, 2021). The work optimised the
scheduling by minimising costs based on plant
layout, downtime, and labour constraints.
However, scheduling can also be planned by
optimising the schedule concerning carbon
emissions. In this situation, maintenance
activities can be performed so fewer journeys
are made and GHG emissions are saved.
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
19/10/2022 15:40:38
 IoT circular economy
The Internet of Things (IoT) is the digital
industrial control system, a network of physical
objects that are connected over the internet by
sensors, software, and other technologies that
exchange data with each thing. In time, the
implementation of IoT will be worldwide and
every single production process and supply
chain will be available as a virtual image.
Open access to a worldwide implementation
of IoT has the potential to provide a truly
circular economy. Product designers can use
the information available from IoT and create
value from other people’s waste. Theoretically,
we could establish a work where manufacturing
processes are all linked so there are zero
extracted raw materials, zero waste disposed of,
and net-zero emissions.
Currently, the world has developed
manufacturing processes one at a time, not
interconnected value chains across industries.
It may be a long time until IoT creates the
worldwide virtual image required, but once
it has, the technology is powerful enough
to address losses from each process and
exchange material between connected
companies. Both materials and energy
consumption can be shared to lower CO₂
emissions drastically. It may take decades,
but IoT provides the technology to create a
circular economy.
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
DT6 Tunley.indd 73
Conclusion
AI clearly has enormous potential in the drive
to net zero. Tunley Engineering has taken its
first step in utilising its power by applying
previously collected data to teach algorithms
to forecast future emissions. Understanding
how a company’s Scope 1 and Scope 2
GHG emissions may vary (due to reduction
opportunities, the season, and future demand)
can help businesses accurately monitor carbon
reduction targets.
Current research being conducted at the
Alan Turing Institute (UK’s national centre for
data science) includes projects exploring how
machine learning can be part of the solution
to climate change (Alan Turing Institute,
2022a). For example, an electricity control
room algorithm is being developed to provide
decision support and ensure energy security for
a decarbonised system (Alan Turing Institute,
2022b). The national grid’s electricity planning
is improved by forecasting the electricity
demand and optimising the schedule. Further,
Industry 4.0 can plan for the impact that global
warming and decarbonisation strategies have
on our lives.
VIEW REFERENCES
XXXXXXX
Aaron Yeardley
xxxx@xxxxxx
www.tunley-engineering.com
73
19/10/2022 15:40:39
 Sorbead®
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basf.indd 1 27/07/2022 15:17:02

 Process gas analyser for
measuring hydrogen concentration
A process gas analyser, based on near-infrared tunable diode laser absorption
spectroscopy, has been developed to measure hydrogen in production environments

Airat Amerov and Michael Gaura

AMETEK Process Instruments

T
he human population of planet Earth is
expected to reach eight billion by the
end of 2022 or early in 2023, depending
on the reference source. This means that, since
the birth years of the authors, nearly twice as
many people are occupying the same amount
of space. However, most of us do not realise
that, in the same time frame, global energy
consumption has tripled. Thankfully, energy
suppliers have continued to adapt and provide
us with reliable and safe power, as well as
heating, cooling, and transportation fuels,
as our population and energy consumption
habits have increased. As our understanding
of the environmental impacts of the increasing Figure 1 5100 HD Analyzer
energy requirements has evolved, a focus has
been placed on reducing carbon utilisation high specificity, and considerable sensitivity.
and release from energy suppliers as well as TDLAS has been proven for several decades
end users. in many energy production and emissions
One ongoing transition that has secured monitoring applications. The low operating
billions of dollars in investment and spending expense (OpEx) – no consumables, long-life
is replacing some portion of fossil fuel or optical components, and minimal maintenance
coal-based energy sources with hydrogen. requirements – has driven its acceptance as a
Recognising that there are a variety of preferred measurement technology.
processes to produce hydrogen (the ‘rainbow’ Measurements of hydrogen were made
– green, blue, brown, grey), this article with this gas analyser in sample matrices
focuses on a technology (tunable diode laser corresponding to nitrogen. Reliable
absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS)) that can be performance was demonstrated over a wide
used to analyse the concentration of hydrogen range of analyte concentrations and under a
in almost any method of hydrogen production, variety of pressure levels in the sample cell
transportation, and storage. of the analyser. The hydrogen measurements
A new process gas analyser, based on near- yielded an accuracy of 2% full-scale range over
infrared TDLAS, was developed and tested for a concentration range of 0-100%.
the measurement of hydrogen in production The principal objective of the work reported
environments. TDLAS is a non-contact here is to characterise a new TDLAS-
optical technique with long-term stability, based extractive analyser with an all-digital

www.decarbonisationtechnology.com 75

DT Ametek.indd 75 19/10/2022 16:56:12

 protocol for the modulation of the laser drive
signal and the demodulation of the detector
response. The analyser was configured for
hydrogen measurements in nitrogen, with an
environmental temperature range of -20°C to
+50°C, and a sample cell pressure range of 10-
25 psia.
Instrument design
The TDLAS instrument evaluated in this work
was an AMETEK 5100HD analyser (see Figure
1) which was modified to operate with a multi-
pass Herriott cell, having an optical path length
of 20 metres and a volume of 1 litre.
A schematic representation of the instrument
is shown in Figure 2. The measurement of
hydrogen was performed with a distributed
feedback (DFB) laser. This laser produced an
optical power of approximately 3 MW, and
optical attenuators were used to reduce the
output power to usable levels. The output of
the laser was coupled into single-mode optical
fibres, which in turn were connected to a fibre-
optic beam splitter. The splitter was used to
divide the optical power in a 50/50 ratio for use
in the sample and reference measurements,
respectively. Gradient refractive index (GRIN)
lenses, with a beam divergence of 1.8 mrad
(milliradians), were used to collimate the
output of the single-mode fibres and direct
Mirror
GRIN lens
Beam splitter
Laser diode
Temperature control
Current control
Figure 2 Block diagram for TDLAS measurement
76
DT Ametek.indd 76
the resulting beams through the sample and
reference cells. The sample and reference cells
each contained 0.5 mm2 InGaAs-photodiode
detectors, which were connected to separate
input channels of the electronics unit. With
this configuration, it was possible to make
simultaneous measurements of unknown
samples and known references, which were
used to lock the output wavelengths for
both lasers.
The sample cell temperature was controlled
with an accuracy of +/- 0.1°C and could
be set in the range of 60°C by setting the
temperature of the oven in the sample cell
compartment. The reference cell is not
located in the sample compartment, but the
temperature was maintained above 40°C. The
laser and photodiodes were also located in the
main electronics compartment, isolated from
the heated sample oven.
The wavelength modulation spectroscopy
(WMS) experiment was implemented by
using a digitally sampled sine function,
summed with a staircase, and the resulting
signal was used to drive the tunable DFB
laser diode. Signals produced by the
detectors were digitised prior to applying
signal processing (such as phase-sensitive
detection and smoothing). In contrast with the
common practice of using second harmonic
Multi pass sample cell Mirror
Photodiode
Reference cell
GRIN lens
Photodiode
Electronics unit
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
19/10/2022 16:56:12
 detection (2F), the detection/demodulation
in this analyser was performed at the laser-
modulation frequency (i.e., ‘1F’ detection).
Using the 1F-detection scheme enabled
the normalisation of the spectra without
the need for a separate measurement of
the laser power. Specifically, the magnitude
of the power envelope of the laser output
is contained in the spectra produced by 1F
demodulation. After the 1F spectra were
normalised, they were differentiated; the
resulting derivative spectra approximate the
second derivative of the absorption spectrum
of the analyte and were referenced as 2F
signals in this work.
The scan parameters for the laser (such as
injection current range, modulation depth)
were set to match the desired wavelength
range required to cover the width of the
ro-vibrational transition. Line width was
determined from hydrogen data published
in spectral libraries. The wavelength-locking
algorithm employed by the instrument was
based on two nested levels of temperature
control employed to maintain the operation of
the laser diode at the proper wavelength. The
first level was a simple PID control loop, which
maintained the laser at a target temperature.
In the second level, the outer control loop,
the spectra of the analyte samples in the
reference cells were monitored. Minor shifts
in the observed peak positions were used
as a feedback signal for the temperature set
point of the inner control loop. Thus, the outer
control loop provided a fine adjustment for the
inner control loop.
Wavelength selection for hydrogen
measurements was dictated by the spectral
position and intensity of the hydrogen
absorption lines in the near-infrared range, the
requirement of minimal spectral interference
with other components of the gas stream at
a refinery or ammonia production plant (as
examples) and, of course, by the availability
of laser diodes. From this point of view, the
hydrogen ro-vibrational spectral line was the
most attractive for measurements. As was
demonstrated earlier by others, this line is
not only the strongest line in the fundamental
vibration band of hydrogen electric-
quadrupole transitions, but is also the line with
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
DT Ametek.indd 77
minimal spectral interference with methane,
ammonia, and carbon dioxide. In addition, this
region of the spectrum corresponded to high
sensitivity for extended InGaAs detectors.
Results and discussion:
Hydrogen analyser
The analyser performance was tested with
samples of hydrogen in nitrogen. Different
concentrations of hydrogen were created
by mixing hydrogen with the host gas in a
gas mixer. Examples of some measured 2F
signals corresponding to different hydrogen
concentrations are shown in Figure 3. In these
data, the peak amplitude and area of the 2F
hydrogen signal were proportional to the
concentration of hydrogen in the sample cell.
With increasing hydrogen concentration, a
common peak position is observed. The data
in Figure 3 also demonstrate the 2F spectrum
of nitrogen selected for measurements in
the spectral range and represent the optical
noise of the system. Utilising an Inverse Least
Squares regression, a calibration model was
developed to accurately measure the hydrogen
concentrations in the presence of the nitrogen
sample matrix.
The response variables used in the
regression were the integrated values
observed over three spectral bands in the 2F
spectra. Specifically, a band centred at the
peak in the water-vapour spectrum and two
bands centred at each of the local minima
adjacent to the peak were used. Concentration
estimates were calculated as:
3
Cj = ∑a Ri
j,i
i=1
Where:
Cj = concentration estimates for each
component
a j,i = calibration coefficients
Ri = integrated band intensities
The data shown in Figure 4 are the
responses of the instrument to a series of
hydrogen challenges over the concentration
ranges of interest. The duration for each
77
19/10/2022 16:56:12
 0.015 0.0015
H2, 25%
H2, 50% 0.0010 N2,
0.010 H2, 3%
H2, 75%
H2, 100% H2, 6%
0.0005 H2, 12%
0.005
2F signal

2F signal
0.0000
0.000
-0.0005

-0.005
-0.0010

-0.010 -0.0015

Wavelength, nm Wavelength, nm

Figure 3 2F spectra of hydrogen in the concentration range of 0-100%

challenge was approximately 10 minutes, with
a return to the zero gas baseline value between
most of the challenges. The response time
(T90) was measured to be 90 seconds and
was limited by the propagation of the gas in
the sampling cell with a flow rate of 1 L/min.
The data acquisition rate was two seconds
per measurement.
Repeatability as a degree of agreement
between replicate measurements of the
same quantity was expressed in terms of
standard deviation of the measurements.
Standard deviation of the readings on each
of the challenges was 0.7%. The value of the
accuracy evaluated at the levels in the range
of 0-100% was less than 1% at all tested
hydrogen levels.
Instrumental drift for 15 hours is shown in
Figure 5. During the drift test, nitrogen gas
was run through the sample cell at a flow rate
of 1 L/min. No significant trends or correlations
with the environmental temperature or sample
pressure were observed in the data. Over the
15-hour period, a mean value of 0.36%, with a
standard deviation of 0.345, was recorded. No
drift larger than 1% H₂ was observed.
The performance of the instrument was also
evaluated over a range of sample pressures from
10 to 25 psia. Spectra recorded for hydrogen
over this pressure range are shown in Figure
6. It should be noted that, because of Dicke
narrowing, the amplitude of the 2F signal grows
with increasing sample pressure. Significant
reduction of the hydrogen linewidth with
pressure and a corresponding increase in peak
amplitude have been reported by others earlier.

100
1.5

80 1.0
H2 readings, %

60 0.5
H2 readings

40 0.0

20 -0.5

-1.0
0
0 20 40 60 80
-1.5
Time, minutes 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Time, hours
Figure 4 Hydrogen analyser performance
validation Figure 5 Hydrogen analyser zero drift

78 www.decarbonisationtechnology.com

DT Ametek.indd 78 19/10/2022 16:56:12

 0.025 1.8

0.020 10 psia
1.6
13 psia
0.015 15 pisa
19 pisa 1.4
0.010 25 pisa
2F signal

1.2
0.005

C0/C
1.0
0.000
0.8
-0.005

-0.010 0.6
C0/C=-1.75(P/P0)3+7.51(P/P0)2-11.86(P/P0)+6.35
-0.015 0.4
0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8
Wavelength, nm P/P0

Figure 6 Hydrogen spectra under different Figure 7 Pressure compensation curve for the
pressure hydrogen analyser

After the calibration was carried out under
normal atmospheric pressure (P0), the analyser
response (C) for a fixed hydrogen concentration
(C0) was recorded under several selected values
of pressure (P) in the sample cell. To correct for
pressure dependence, a pressure compensation
routine was implemented. The pressure-
compensation factor was calculated from a
third-order polynomial, which used the ratio of
the absolute pressure under the measurement
conditions to that of the standard value (i.e., 1.0
atmosphere). For the curve shown in Figure 7,
polynomial regression was
replicate a conventional wavelength modulation
spectroscopy experiment. Further, the digital
signal processing methods employed in this
system successfully removed minor background
interferences caused by other absorbing species
in the sample matrices. Specifically, the digital
signal-processing methods employed in this
system were used to successfully implement a
multivariate calibration, enabling the instrument
to accurately measure hydrogen in the presence
of the overlapped spectral responses. The
hydrogen measurements yielded an accuracy
of better than 2% over a concentration range of
0-100%. With TDLAS-based analysers being

() ()
C0 3 P widely accepted as process and emissions
= ∑a j measuring devices, integration in hydrogen
j=0
C P 0
production and transmission applications is
a logical alternative to other measurement
Where: devices that directly expose sensors to the gas
C0 = fixed hydrogen concentration stream, have a high cost of operation, or are
C = analyser readings complicated to operate and maintain.
P = pressure in the sample cell
Acknowledgements
P0 = normal atmospheric pressure
The authors wish to thank AMETEK Process Instruments for
(aj) = the coefficients estimated for this their continuous support, during development of this project.
instrument.

Conclusions VIEW REFERENCES

The test gas analyser was built for the
measurements of hydrogen content in a couple Airat Amerov
of anticipated petrochemical and hydrocarbon airat.amerov@ametek.com
applications but could also be designed for other
production units. The analyser employed an Michael Gaura
all-digital measurement protocol configured to michael.gaura@ametek.com

www.decarbonisationtechnology.com 79

DT Ametek.indd 79 19/10/2022 16:56:12

 ACCELERATING
DECARBONISATION
TOGETHER
The world’s energy system is changing. To solve the challenges those changes present, Shell Catalysts
& Technologies is developing its Decarbonisation Solutions portfolio — to provide services and
integrated value chains of technologies, designed to help industries navigate their path through the
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Decarbonisation ambitions — creating a cleaner way forward together.

Learn more at shell.com/decarbonisation

Decarbonisation
Solutions

shell.indd 1 03/05/2022 16:40:41

 Decarbonising fired process heaters
with zero-emission electric heat
Replacing conventional fossil fuel-based combustion systems with electric
resistance heating systems can result in significant decarbonisation gains
James Lewis
Chromalox
A
s global greenhouse gas emissions
continue to rise steadily, governments
are implementing more aggressive
carbon policies to promote the decarbonisation
of critical sectors, like energy, which continues
to be one of the largest single sources of carbon
emissions due to heavy reliance on emission-
intensive processes for steam generation and
process heating. While it is understood which
sectors are the largest contributors, achieving
pollution reductions is an ongoing challenge.
Carbon policies are a good foundation to drive
change but require cooperation, collaboration,
and time to reach their full potential and prevent
carbon drift. In addition, these policies alone
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
DT6 Chromalox.indd 81
cannot drive the change needed to meet global
emission targets, as they only promote the
incentive and push the penalties associated
with emissions but do not offer the solution for
decarbonising. Instead, finding viable alternatives
to the combustion equipment deeply ingrained
in the industry is critical towards the long-term
success of energy sustainability.
Among the solutions on the market today,
some companies have looked to waste heat
recovery (WHR) systems as a method of
reducing their emissions. WHR systems capture
lost heat from process outputs and recirculate it
to other parts of the plant to reuse energy that
has already been created. These systems provide
81
19/10/2022 15:46:43
 improvements over stand-alone fuel-fired
equipment by improving operational efficiency,
reducing emissions, and reducing necessary
equipment sizes, but they are not perfect. WHR
systems are typically expensive and should be
evaluated to see if the benefits outweigh the
cost to implement. In addition, the captured heat
is at a lower quality and temperature and may
not always be suitable for all plant processes,
particularly those that run at higher temperatures.
This often requires large, oversized exchangers to
capitalise on the heat recovery. In the end, WHR
provides value over conventional fossil fuel-
based systems but does not allow for true carbon
neutrality when paired with combustion sources.
Electric resistance heating
A more practical solution is the use of electric
resistance heating to avoid direct Scope 1
emissions from facilities altogether. While the
elimination of Scope 1 emissions is generally
the primary focus of any given facility, negating
Scope 2 emissions is equally as important.
Although very few countries are fully
powered by renewable energy sources, the
share of renewable energy in the energy
mix is steadily increasing. More options are
also becoming available that include the
development of more advanced micro-grids,
localised generation of renewable power,
and more advantageous Power Purchase
Agreement (PPA) plans from power providers
who offer renewables as part of their mix. The
increased implementation of renewable energy
sources allows for the avoidance of Scope 2
emissions to provide a zero-emission solution
from generation to process.
Electric resistance heating technologies are not
a new concept and have been on the market for
over 100 years, particularly in the hydrocarbon
processing industry, which is a major contributor
to global greenhouse gas emissions. With
the development of medium voltage electric
resistance technology, even more opportunity
exists to replace conventional fossil fuel systems
in the energy sector, specifically within the
oil and gas industry. Medium voltage heaters
operate at higher voltage potentials, from
1000V up to 7200V. This increase in voltage
means a significant reduction in amp draw
(current), which in turn drastically downsizes
82
DT6 Chromalox.indd 82
and simplifies the necessary infrastructure to
support the installation. Fewer amps mean
fewer wires, contactors, fuses, and overall fewer
connection points, simplifying maintenance and
improving uptime. In addition, electric resistance
heaters are 100% efficient at taking applied
energy and converting it into heat. Losses do
occur by means of heat dissipation in the power
switching components and I2R losses in the
power wiring. However, through the reduction
of these core components, the losses are further
mitigated, leading to operational efficiencies
upwards of 99% with Direct Connect MV
heating technology.
Another asset of electric resistance heating
is its versatility. Electric heating elements can
be banked together and installed in flanges,
fittings, pipes, vessels, and more. With the metal
protective sheath being an inherent feature
of the electric tubular element, various grades
of high-temperature and corrosion-resistance
alloys can be chosen, such that electric heating
elements can be used across numerous thermal
processes. This is especially valuable when
considering the variance in applications across
refining and petrochemical processes. Electric
heating can even come in the form of heat
tracing, which is a valuable technology that can
effectively replace old steam tracing lines. There
are numerous benefits when considering you
are eliminating the combustion steam generator
in addition to all the complex steam tracing lines
and providing a simpler technology that is easier
to install and maintain.
Separation and conversion
When looking at how electric heating
technology can be used in refinery and
petrochemical facilities, it is important to
consider the types of applications that
currently exist. There are many different
types of processing units, each playing
an important role in the overall process of
converting feedstock oil into finished petroleum
products and sustainable fuels.
A typical refinery will have a dozen or more
of these processing units, which primarily fall
into two categories: separation and conversion.
Traditionally heat used in refineries for oil
feedstock and other hydroprocessing systems,
which require large amounts of energy, is
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
19/10/2022 15:46:43
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decarb Tech A411222 ad.indd 1 01/02/2022
04/02/2022 15:54
13:49:05
 25,000

22,500 Natural gas Propane Fuel oil

Carbon emissions (tCO2/year)

Natural gas trend Propane trend Fuel oil trend

20,000

17,500

15,000

12,500

10,000

7500

500

250

0
0 2.5 5 7.5 10 12.5 15 17.5 20 22.5 25 27.5 30 32.5 35 37.5
Burner size (MMBTU)

Figure 1 Carbon emissions relative to fuel type

generated using API 560 fossil fuel-fired separates this crude oil into broad categories
heaters. API 560 heaters make up the majority of its component hydrocarbons, or ‘fractions’.
of a refinery and petrochemical facility’s CO₂ The temperatures required for the process can
emissions out of the heater stack. For example, extend upwards of 1000ºF, well within the
a 34 MMBTU/hr fired heater can emit up to ranges for electric process heaters.
15,900 tons/year of CO₂. This is equivalent to After the oil is separated within the
emissions of 3,245 cars on the road per year. atmospheric distillation unit, the heavier
To improve the efficiency of the API 560 residual gas oils are sent to a vacuum
heater, heat from the stack is often captured distillation unit for further processing and
and recirculated to the combustion section of separation. Here the oil needs to be preheated
the system to improve the efficiency of the fossil prior to entering the vacuum distillation unit
fuel-fired heater. However, the aforementioned to achieve further separation. This process is
drawbacks of WHR are still present, and the endothermic and thus additional heat is often
emissions are still significant. required to supplement the process, another
There are numerous process technologies candidate for electric resistance technology.
and refinery/petrochemical designs throughout After separation, conversion units take
the industry that are currently serviced by individual hydrocarbon streams and convert
API 560 fossil fuel-fired heaters that are them to lighter products by changing their
good candidates for electrification using size and chemical structure. An example of
electric resistance technology. A closer look a conversion unit is the isomerisation and
at these processes can reveal how electric reformer process. In the reformer unit, naphtha
heating technology can displace conventional is converted to make high-octane blend
combustion heat sources. components for gasoline. The most widely
For separation units, the most common found used conversion method is called cracking,
in refineries are atmospheric and vacuum where heat, pressure, catalysts, and sometimes
distillation. Atmospheric distillation for crude hydrogen are used to crack hydrocarbon
and bio-crude begins with feedstock oils molecules into lighter ones, typically gasoline,
comprised of a mixture of hydrocarbons. This kerosene, and diesel.
feedstock oil is first heated and then put into a Electric heaters have been used in the
distillation column, also known as a still, where isomerisation and reformer process for many
different products boil off and are recovered at decades, primarily due to an electric heater’s
different temperatures. The distillation process ability to achieve optimal catalyst bed reactor

84 www.decarbonisationtechnology.com

DT6 Chromalox.indd 84 19/10/2022 15:46:43

 temperatures. In some instances, the electric
heater is used to supplement and increase the
heat recovered from the exothermic reaction
process. Additionally, electric heaters are
used to continually regenerate the catalyst
bed reactor or for intermittent regeneration of
the catalyst bed depending on the type and
technology used for the process. Where fossil
fuel-based equipment is used within these
processes, there is a good opportunity to
replace them with an electric solution to further
mitigate a facility’s carbon footprint.
Electric steam generators
Once the crude has been processed through
the refinery, there is still an excess of
byproducts that have value through additional
processing in a petrochemical facility. For
this reason, refineries and petrochemical
facilities are often in close proximity or even
located within the same plant to capitalise on
the supply of feedstocks and reduce further
transportation costs. One example where
these lighter hydrocarbons would be further
processed within a petrochemical facility
would be reboiler columns or light hydrocarbon
distillation units. These processes typically
use shell and tube-type exchangers within a
reboiler vessel. The heat energy supplied to
these reboiler exchangers is either from fossil
fuel-fired steam or heat transfer systems.
Electric resistive heaters are an ideal zero-
emission alternative for these applications
$2.5
$2.3
Operational inefficiencies
Annual cost ($USD millions)
$2.0
Carbon cost – (EU-ETS)
$1.8
Air permit cost
$1.5
$1.3
$1.0
$0.8
$0.5
$0.3
$0.0
5 10
Figure 2 The cost of waste from fossil fuel-based systems
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
DT6 Chromalox.indd 85
considering many of these processes are low
pressure and low temperature.
Electric steam generators and process
heating systems using a newer and proven
MV resistive element technology are
successfully displacing fossil-based systems
globally, allowing companies to achieve
increased output at higher pressures which
were previously only capable with fossil
fuel-fired heaters. While direct replacement
of combustion systems is often the first
consideration, other options for electric
heaters are to decentralise heat energy from
low-efficiency, high emitter fossil fuel-fired
applications and allow electric heaters to be
used at point of use, either to supplement
existing processes or to preheat processes to
increase plant efficiency.
For instance, many refiners and petrochemical
companies are looking into alternate fuel supplies
to fossil fired heaters, such as hydrogen. Due
to electric resistive heaters’ versatility in design,
they can be coupled with green or blue hydrogen
in order to decrease CO₂ emissions while still
upholding the same advantages. Another effort
to reduce CO₂ emissions involves companies
considering electric heating for utility heat energy,
such as steam, to be used centrally or at point
of use. As customers adopt newer emission-
free technologies, they will need to arrive at
new ways to capture as much heat energy as
possible. This is mainly due to waste heat energy
being prominent for fossil-fired heating. If fossil-
20 30 40 50 60 70 80 100
MMBTU
85
19/10/2022 15:46:44

Figure 3 DirectConnect MV steam generator
fired heating is replaced or decoupled from the
process, additional heat energy would need to be
sourced using other technologies, presenting yet
another opportunity for DirectConnect MV steam
generators and process heaters.
Cost efficiency
While the value of electric resistance technology
is apparent in many ways, an often-quoted
challenge to its adoption is the cost of electricity
compared to conventional fuels. While electricity
is typically a more expensive energy source,
this is only one aspect of operational costs and
myopic when factoring in true cost of ownership.
This is especially true when considering the cost
of carbon globally. In regions that have existing
legislation, whether it be a fixed carbon tax or a
cap-and-trade system, the cost of emissions is
only getting more expensive.
In Europe, for example, pricing through the
EU-ETS has been on a steady rise for years, with
prices easily pushing beyond 80 USD/tCO2. To
put that into perspective, this would cost over
37k USD for every 1 MMBTU of boiler capacity
per year. Assuming an average electricity rate
of 0.08 USD/kWh, this would offset almost
470,000 kWh of electricity costs per year for
every 1 MMBTU of burner size.
In other parts of the world that are not as
far along in their carbon policies, the cost of
emissions is still present. Facility air permits,
86
DT6 Chromalox.indd 86
construction permits,
emission control
systems with filter
media, waste disposal,
and more all contribute
to operational costs
for fossil fuel systems
and tip the scales in
favour of electric. Some
companies may not be
feeling the full extent of
the carbon policies to
date due to extensive
free allocations that
are offered to prevent
carbon drift. While these
allocations do provide a
safety net for emission-
intensive facilities, they
are designed to give
companies enough time to find better solutions
to decarbonise their processes before facing
substantial penalties while being aware that their
coverage reduces year over year to meet global
emission targets.
This falling ceiling will become more obvious
to facilities over the next few years. Those
companies that see where the industry is headed
and are beginning to plan their sustainability
journeys now will be in a much better position
once the allocations dry up altogether.
With companies across the globe developing
and executing their sustainability strategies,
there are a lot of factors to consider, but it is
important to acknowledge that technology is
changing to adapt to current challenges. In this
way, the advances made in electric resistance
technology are continuing to expand to meet
the needs of a changing industry.
When evaluating the versatility of this
technology as well as its true cost of
ownership, it is apparent that the energy
sector, and oil and gas in particular, can make
significant decarbonisation gains utilising the
latest in electric resistance heating systems
to replace conventional fossil fuel-based
combustion systems.
James Lewis
james.lewis@chromalox.com
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
19/10/2022 15:46:44
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 Ad index
AMETEK Process Instruments 30 Meryt Chemical 61
info.ametekpi.com/decarbonization meryt-chemical.com

Atlas Copco 29 North American Hydrogen Demand &

www.atlascopco-gap.com Infrastructure Development Congress 9

BASF - Refining Catalysts 36 Shell Catalysts & Technologies IFC

catalysts.basf.com/industries/oil-gas/ www.shell.com/decarbonisation
sustainability-efforts-for-adsorbents
Technip Energies 2
Chromalox 10 www.technipenergies.com
www.chromalox.com
Topsoe 4
Crystaphase IBC www.topsoe.com/blue-hydrogen
www.crystaphase.com
Watlow 14
DecarbonisationTechnology.com 83 www.watlow.com

DecarbonisationTechnology W R Grace 22
Summit.com 87 grace.com/industries/refining-technologies

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