Efficient hydrogen production with CO2 capture using gas switching reforming (GSR): Techno-economic assessment

Hydrogen is identified as one of the clean energy carriers in the future energy scenario.
This work presents a process to produce low cost hydrogen with CO₂ capture using gas
switching reforming (GSR). The process steps include GSR, water-gas shift, pure
hydrogen recovery in pressure-swing adsorption process and CO₂ and hydrogen
compression trains. The overall process, denoted as GSR-H2, produces 99.999% pure
hydrogen with >96% CO₂ capture. In this study, GSR-H2 is compared economically
with the conventional steam-methane reforming (SMR) plant that produces hydrogen
without CO₂ capture. GSR-H2 produces 10% more hydrogen when compared to the
SMR plant, but consumes significant imported electricity. The cost of hydrogen
produced from the GSR-H2 and SMR plant is similar (1.67 €/kg-H2) with a CO₂ tax of
only 20 €/ton, even with GSR-H2 being a near zero emission plant. In a future energy
scenario where the CO₂ emission tax is high and the electricity price is low, GSR-H2
will significantly outperform the conventional SMR plant.