Solar Hydrogen via Steam-Gasification of Petroleum Coke

Project Partners: ETH, external pageINTEVEP-PDVSA - Petróleos de Venezuela, external pageCIEMAT - Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas Medio Ambientales y Tecnológicas Spain
Project Head: Philipp Haueter

Background – The steam-gasification of petroleum coke (petcoke) using concentrated solar radiation as the energy source of high-temperature process heat is proposed as a viable decarbonization process and as a transition path to solar hydrogen production. The advantages are three-fold:

the calorific value of the feedstock is upgraded by the solar power input,
the gaseous products are not contaminated by combustion by-products,
the discharge of pollutants to the environment is avoided.

Fig. 1: Process flow diagram for the conversion of petroleum coke to syngas and hydrogen using concentrated solar power.

The proposed solar hybrid thermochemical processes conserves petroleum and reduces emissions. It further converts intermittent solar energy into a storable and transportable chemical fuel. At the same time, petcoke is solar-upgraded to a cleaner fluid fuel for electricity generation in highly efficient combined cycles or fuel cells. In contrast to the gasification using process heat derived from the internal petcoke combustion, the solar-driven gasification produces high quality syngas that is not contaminated by the products of combustion. Syngas can be further processed to separate streams of H₂ and CO₂; if the latter is sequestered, the proposed process becomes a decarbonization process that converts petcoke to hydrogen without release of CO₂to the atmosphere.

Objective – Development and demonstration of the solar chemical reactor technology for the steam-gasification of petroleum coke.

The project includes:

Thermodynamic and kinetic analyses of the thermochemical process.
Design, fabrication, and testing of a 10 kW solar chemical reactor prototype.
Modeling, optimization, and scale-up design to 0.5 MW.
Experimental demonstration of the 0.5 MW reactor at PSA-CIEMAT's solar tower facility.
Conceptual design, system, and economic analyses of a large-scale commercial plant.

Project-related Publications