Hydrogen production with CO2 capture

• Technologies for hydrogen production from fossil fuels with CO2 capture are reviewed.
• Purity requirements for produced hydrogen and CO2 are reviewed.
• Selection of process route is discussed.
• An outlook on production and use of hydrogen in a CCS context is given.

In view of the abundance of fossil fuels, hydrogen production with CO2 capture could be a key transition technology for moving in the direction of a sustainable hydrogen-using society. An overview of technologies for hydrogen production from fossil fuels with CO2 capture is provided in this paper: reforming or gasification with subsequent gas separation by adsorption, absorption, membranes or cryogenic/low-temperature separation; process routes with integrated syngas production and gas separation by water–gas shift membrane reactors, reformer membrane reactors, sorption-enhanced water–gas shift and sorption-enhanced reforming; and processes utilizing the concept of chemical looping. Furthermore, purity requirements for the produced CO2 and hydrogen are reviewed. Few technologies exist that can produce both high-purity hydrogen and CO2 at transport quality simultaneously, and the few possible approaches are maximum on the pilot stage. Producing hydrogen from fossil fuels, while capturing the CO2 for transport and storage is therefore a matter of matching hydrogen and CO2 separation technologies in a best possible manner, taking into account the planned transport option for the CO2 and the way in which the hydrogen will be used. Hydrogen production with CO2 capture can potentially lead to large CO2 emission reductions in eg. transport sector.