Low carbon coal-to-H2 process

Demand for high purity hydrogen is increasing, alongside demand for emerging fuel cells used in vehicles, and heat and power production. However, producing the gas from natural gas or water is expensive. Producing hydrogen from coals have been considered unfeasible due to its low H2 yield but the University of Edinburgh’s novel process can improve the hydrogen yield greatly. It captures CO2 from the process stream, indicating that CCS on H2 plants using coal is not optional but compulsory. This research highlights the potential for CCS to improve process performance in stark contrast to CCS on power plants which incurs a costly energy penalty.