CO2 capture from H2 plants: implementation for EOR

Hydrogen plants are a significant source of CO2 in refineries. More precisely, the hydrogen plant is one of the largest emitters in a typical refinery. Therefore CO2 capture from hydrogen plants has become a particular point of attention for refining and industrial gas companies such as Air Liquide, who owns and operates numerous hydrogen plants throughout the world. Typical hydrogen plants use steam methane reforming technology and provide concentrated streams of CO2 that can potentially lead to lower CO2 capture costs than in other industries. One Air Liquide solution for CO2 capture from SMR plants is called CRYOCAP (TM) H-2. This technology uses cryogenic purification to separate the CO2 from the off-gas of the PSA. This is followed by membrane separation in order to simultaneously increase the CO2 capture rate and the SMR productivity as hydrogen recovery from syngas is increased. Extra hydrogen production ranges from 10 to 20%. A first opportunity for the development of this technology can be the EOR (Enhanced Oil Recovery) application. Indeed, as will be shown, this technology offers CO2 capture costs low enough and at the right locations for such usage. This should also allow the cost of capture to be further reduced and accelerate the technology adoption as a way to reduce CO2 emissions associated with geological storage. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.