Low Temperature Plasma Production of Hydrogen

The Department of Energyĺs Industrial Decarbonation Roadmap aims to decarbonize energy- intensive sectors reaching net zero carbon emissions nationwide by 2050. The chemical industry sector accounts for 20% of CO2 emissions where new innovations in chemical manufacturing can help mitigate CO2 emissions. Aligned with this goal is the production of chemicals and fuels such as hydrogen that is growing to help foster in fuel cell power vehicles mitigating conventional transportation fuels and their contribution to CO2 emission. However, conventional technologies use steam reforming of natural gas to produce hydrogen that, unfortunately, also releases carbon dioxide. To improve upon this, SkyVision Sciences will develop and demonstrate a low temperature plasma process for converting natural gas into H2 and CO (syngas) streams absent of producing carbon dioxide. A new cold plasma reactor will be developed with an integrated catalyst structure. This will enable process intensification to be obtained by combining this catalytic structure within a cold plasma reactor that partially oxidizes natural gas into valuable H2 and CO, rather than CO2 and water. The main benefit of this technology is the economical conversion of natural gas into syngas (H2 and CO) without producing CO2, and where this syngas can then readily be processed to produce a myriad of fuels and chemicals. This process efficiently converts natural gas feedstocks into hydrogen rich streams without carbon dioxide helping to replace conventional steam reforming technology with its substantive emissions of CO2.