Question
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We want to reduce the refinery’s carbon footprint, starting with SMR. What's the best economic approach: CCUS, an alternative process, or buy in the hydrogen?
Nov-2021
Answers
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David Kelling, Haldor Topsoe Inc, dkk@topsoe.com
Rather than focusing on the SMR carbon footprint, perhaps is would be better to focus on the entire refinery footprint by adding a blue hydrogen plant with over 97% carbon recovery and using the Product H2 as fuel in all of the refinery heaters. This of course requires having the ability to sequester the CO2 from the H2 plant. Topsoe Autothermal Reforming Technology (SynCor) is an industry leading technology for making Blue H2 with the lowest capex and opex for capacities in a single line up to 450 MMSCFD. Our SynCor Blue H2 plant design is able to remove 97% of the CO2 in a single amine unit in the process, which is much more economical from both an opex and capex point of view than CO2 recovery from the flue gas (post combustion).
As far as the SMR is concerned, pre-combustion CO2 removal can as mentioned be done on the process side or post-combustion removal can be added on the flue gas. These types of revamps are not particularly complicated and can significantly reduce the CO2 footprint of an existing H2 plant.
Nov-2021
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