Different technologies produce hydrogen with varying cost and carbon footprints over the entire resource supply chain and manufacturing steps. This paper examines the relative costs of carbon mitigation from a life cycle perspective for 12 different hydrogen production techniques using fossil fuels, nuclear energy and renewable sources by technology substitution. Production costs and life cycle emissions are parameterized and re-estimated from currently available assessments to produce robust ranges to describe uncertainties for each technology. Hydrogen production routes are then compared using a combination of metrics, levelized cost of carbon mitigation and the proportional decarbonization benchmarked against steam methane reforming, to provide a clearer picture of the relative merits of various hydrogen production pathways, the limitations of technologies and the research challenges that need to be addressed for cost-effective decarbonization pathways. The results show that there is a trade-off between the cost of mitigation and the proportion of decarbonization achieved. The most cost-effective methods of decarbonization still utilize fossil feedstocks due to their low cost of extraction and processing, but only offer moderate decarbonisation levels due to previous underestimations of supply chain emissions contributions. Methane pyrolysis may be the most cost-effective short-term abatement solution, but its emissions reduction performance is heavily dependent on managing supply chain emissions whilst cost effectiveness is governed by the price of solid carbon. Renewable electrolytic routes offer significantly higher emissions reductions, but production routes are more complex than those that utilise naturally-occurring energy-dense fuels and hydrogen costs are high at modest renewable energy capacity factors. Nuclear routes are highly cost-effective mitigation options, but could suffer from regionally varied perceptions of safety and concerns regarding proliferation and the available data lacks depth and transparency. Better-performing fossil-based hydrogen production technologies with lower decarbonization fractions will be required to minimise the total cost of decarbonization but may not be commensurate with ambitious climate targets.

Levelized cost of CO2 mitigation from hydrogen production routes

Metals that are active catalysts for methane (Ni, Pt, Pd), when dissolved in inactive low–melting temperature metals (In, Ga, Sn, Pb), produce stable molten metal alloy catalysts for pyrolysis of methane into hydrogen and carbon. All solid catalysts previously used for this reaction have been deactivated by carbon deposition. In the molten alloy system, the insoluble carbon floats to the surface where it can be skimmed off. A 27% Ni–73% Bi alloy achieved 95% methane conversion at 1065°C in a 1.1-meter bubble column and produced pure hydrogen without CO 2 or other by-products. Calculations show that the active metals in the molten alloys are atomically dispersed and negatively charged. There is a correlation between the amount of charge on the atoms and their catalytic activity.

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Catalytic molten metals for the direct conversion of methane to hydrogen and separable carbon

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Status overview of torrefaction technologies

Emissions of SO2, NOx, CO2, and HCl from Co-firing of coals with raw and torrefied biomass fuels

Economic analysis of hydrogen production by methane thermal decomposition: Comparison to competing technologies

This study examined and compared the effect of torrefaction on the heating value, elementary composition, and chlorine content of eight woody biomasses. The biomass samples were torrefied in a specially constructed batch reactor at 260 °C for 30, 60, and 90 min. The original biomasses as well as the solid, liquid, and gaseous torrefaction reaction products were analyzed separately. The higher heating values (HHV) of dry samples increased from 19.5–21.0 MJ  kg−1 to 21.2–23.2 MJ  kg−1 during 60 min of torrefaction. In all samples, the HHV increased 9 % on average. Furthermore, the effect of torrefaction time on the biomass HHV was studied. Measurements showed that after a certain point, increasing the torrefaction time had no effect on the samples' HHV. This optimal torrefaction time varied considerably between the samples. For more reactive biomasses, i.e., birch and aspen, the optimal torrefaction time was close 30 min whereas the HHV of less reactive biomasses, e.g., stumps, increased markedly even after a 60-min torrefaction. Another significant observation was that torrefaction reduced the chlorine content of the biomass samples. The chlorine concentration of the solid product dropped in most samples from the original by half or even as much as 90 %. The highest relative chlorine decrease was observed in the Eucalyptus dunnii sample, which also had the highest chlorine content of all the studied biomasses. The relative carbon content of the biomass samples increased during torrefaction as the average elementary composition changed from CH0.123O0.827 to CH0.105O0.674 after a 60-min torrefaction.

The effect of torrefaction on the chlorine content and heating value of eight woody biomass samples

Thermo-catalytic decomposition of methane: The effect of reaction parameters on process design and the utilization possibilities of the produced carbon

Techno-economic analysis of four concepts for thermal decomposition of methane: Reduction of CO2 emissions in natural gas combustion

A study on raw, torrefied, and steam-exploded wood: Fine grinding, drop-tube reactor combustion tests in N2/O2 and CO2/O2 atmospheres, particle geometry analysis, and numerical kinetics modeling

Tiina Keipi

Papers

Economic analysis of hydrogen production by methane thermal decomposition: Comparison to competing technologies

The effect of torrefaction on the chlorine content and heating value of eight woody biomass samples

Thermo-catalytic decomposition of methane: The effect of reaction parameters on process design and the utilization possibilities of the produced carbon

Techno-economic analysis of four concepts for thermal decomposition of methane: Reduction of CO2 emissions in natural gas combustion

A study on raw, torrefied, and steam-exploded wood: Fine grinding, drop-tube reactor combustion tests in N2/O2 and CO2/O2 atmospheres, particle geometry analysis, and numerical kinetics modeling