Hydrogen Production for Refineries

Refineries in the U.S. are processing increasingly heavy sour crudes that contain metals, sulfur, and high molecular weight aromatic hydrocarbons. Many sour crudes originate in the Western Hemisphere, including heavy crudes from Venezuela, southern California, and the enormous quantities of oil sands in Canada. Processing and upgrading these heavy feedstocks requires considerable quantities of hydrogen. Unfortunately, revamping or installing new hydrogen capacity with conventional technologies such as methane steam reforming or petroleum coke gasification is expensive. This project will develop a new technology that will allow hydrogen to be produced in refineries at a cost that is considerably lower than hydrogen produced from conventional technologies, and also less expensive than purchasing hydrogen from a third party. In this approach, ¿bottom of the barrel¿ materials will be converted into hydrogen, facilitating the production of more distillate fuels from each barrel of oil, especially from the less expensive heavy crudes that are available in great quantity. Commercial Applications and other Benefits as described by the awardee: As refineries process increasingly heavier crudes, more and more hydrogen is needed to remove metals, sulfur, and nitrogen, as well as to upgrade highly aromatic feedstocks such as residuum. New technologies that have lower capital and feedstock costs for generating hydrogen should be of interest to the refining industry. This is even more the case with smaller refineries (~50,000 bbl/day) that cannot afford expensive methane steam reforming or petcoke gasifiers