Developing an innovative method, HyPr-RING, to produce hydrogen from hydrocarbons

A new innovative hydrogen-production method, HyPr-RING (hydrogen production by reaction-integrated novel gasification), using hydrocarbon and water has been proposed. Experimental results show that, using one reactor, I mol of carbon generates 2 mol of hydrogen with no pollutants and no carbon oxides being detected in the product gas phase. Water reduction by the hydrocarbons and the CO2 absorption reaction are the key reactions in this method. The absorption of CO2 from the gas phase improves the yield of hydrogen production from water. A feasible hydrogen production process was designed by applying the above-mentioned method, and the thermodynamic efficiency was calculated accordingly. Theoretically, the calculated cold-gas efficiency of this process exceeds 90%, and no clean-up system is required. This process potentially reduces hydrogen production costs compared to conventional hydrogen production methods. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.