Ammonia Cracking for Green Hydrogen
20230242395 · 2023-08-03
Assignee
Inventors
- Andrew Shaw (Sunbury On Thames, GB)
- Vincent White (Ashtead, GB)
- Edward Landis Weist, Jr. (Macungie, PA)
- Paul Higginbotham (Guildford, GB)
- Donald E Henry (Allentown, PA, US)
Cpc classification
Y02P20/133
GENERAL TAGGING OF NEW TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS; GENERAL TAGGING OF CROSS-SECTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES SPANNING OVER SEVERAL SECTIONS OF THE IPC; TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC CROSS-REFERENCE ART COLLECTIONS [XRACs] AND DIGESTS
Y02E60/36
GENERAL TAGGING OF NEW TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS; GENERAL TAGGING OF CROSS-SECTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES SPANNING OVER SEVERAL SECTIONS OF THE IPC; TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC CROSS-REFERENCE ART COLLECTIONS [XRACs] AND DIGESTS
C01B2203/0833
CHEMISTRY; METALLURGY
B01D53/229
PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
Y02P20/129
GENERAL TAGGING OF NEW TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS; GENERAL TAGGING OF CROSS-SECTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES SPANNING OVER SEVERAL SECTIONS OF THE IPC; TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC CROSS-REFERENCE ART COLLECTIONS [XRACs] AND DIGESTS
C01B3/56
CHEMISTRY; METALLURGY
International classification
C01B3/56
CHEMISTRY; METALLURGY
C01B3/50
CHEMISTRY; METALLURGY
B01J6/00
PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
Abstract
Recovery of hydrogen from an ammonia cracking process in which the cracked gas is purified in a PSA device is improved by using a membrane separator on the PSA tail gas.
Claims
1. A method for producing hydrogen from ammonia, comprising: pressurizing liquid ammonia; heating (and optionally vaporizing) the liquid ammonia by heat exchange with one or more hot fluids to produce heated ammonia; combusting a fuel in a furnace to heat catalyst-containing reactor tubes and to form a flue gas; supplying the heated ammonia to the catalyst-containing reactor tubes to cause cracking of the ammonia into a cracked gas containing hydrogen gas and nitrogen gas; purifying the cracked gas in a PSA device to produce a hydrogen product gas and a PSA tail gas; and separating the PSA tail gas, or a gas derived therefrom, using a membrane separator to discharge a nitrogen-rich retentate gas and recycle a hydrogen-rich permeate gas for further processing in the PSA and/or for mixing into the hydrogen product gas, wherein the fuel comprises one or more of ammonia, the PSA tail gas, hydrogen and methane; and wherein the one or more hot fluids comprise the flue gas and/or the cracked gas.
2. A method according to claim 1, wherein ammonia is removed upstream of the membrane separator.
3. A method according to claim 1 comprising, prior to separating the PSA tail gas, recovering ammonia from the PSA tail gas and recycling the recovered ammonia into the ammonia supplied to the catalyst-containing reactor tubes.
4. A method according to claim 1 comprising, prior to purifying the cracked gas, recovering ammonia from the cracked gas and recycling the recovered ammonia into the ammonia supplied to the catalyst-containing reactor tubes.
5. A method according to claim 1, comprising compressing the PSA tail gas prior to supplying as the feed to the membrane separator.
6. A method according to claim 1, comprising compressing the hydrogen-rich permeate gas before the further processing in the PSA and/or the mixing into the hydrogen product gas.
7. A method according to claim 1, comprising: compressing the PSA tail gas to produce compressed PSA tail gas; cooling the compressed PSA tail gas by heat exchange against one or more cold fluids to condense ammonia in the compressed PSA tail gas; and separating the condensed ammonia from the compressed PSA tail gas to produce ammonia-depleted PSA tail gas, wherein the ammonia-depleted PSA tail gas is supplied as the feed to the membrane separator.
8. A method according to claim 7, wherein the one or more cold fluids comprise the pressurized liquid ammonia and the ammonia-depleted PSA tail gas.
9. A method according to claim 7, wherein the condensed ammonia is combined with the pressurized liquid ammonia.
10. A method according to claim 7, wherein the membrane separator comprises a first membrane separation unit and a second membrane separation unit in series, the method further comprising: supplying the ammonia-depleted PSA tail gas to the first membrane separation unit to produce the hydrogen-rich permeate gas for further processing in the PSA and a nitrogen-enriched retentate gas comprising residual hydrogen gas; and supplying the nitrogen-enriched retentate gas to the second membrane separation unit to discharge the nitrogen-rich retentate gas and produce a hydrogen-enriched permeate gas which is combined with the PSA tail gas.
11. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the membrane separator comprises a single membrane separation unit.
12. A method according to claim 1, further comprising expanding the nitrogen-rich retentate gas in a turbine to recover power.
13. A method according to claim 12, further comprising prior to expanding the nitrogen-rich retentate gas, heating the nitrogen-rich retentate gas by heat exchange with the one or more hot fluids.
14. A method according to claim 1, further comprising purifying the nitrogen-rich retentate gas to produce a nitrogen product.
15. Apparatus for producing hydrogen from ammonia, comprising: a pump for pressurizing liquid ammonia; at least one first heat exchanger in fluid communication with the pump for heating (and optionally vaporizing) the liquid ammonia from the pump by heat exchange with one or more hot fluids to produce heated ammonia; catalyst-containing reactor tubes in fluid communication with the first heat exchanger(s), for cracking heated ammonia from the first heat exchanger(s) to produce a first cracked gas containing hydrogen gas and nitrogen gas; a furnace in thermal communication with the catalyst-containing reactor tubes for combustion of a fuel to heat the catalyst-containing reactor tubes and to form a flue gas; a cracked gas conduit for feeding cracked gas from the catalyst-containing reactor tubes to the at least one heat exchanger; a flue gas conduit for feeding flue gas from the furnace to the at least one heat exchanger; a PSA device in fluid communication with the catalyst-containing reactor tubes for purifying the cracked gas after passage through the at least one heat exchanger to produce a hydrogen product gas and a PSA tail gas; a membrane separator in fluid communication with the PSA device for separating the PSA offgas, or a gas derived therefrom, to discharge a nitrogen-rich retentate gas and a hydrogen-rich permeate gas; wherein the apparatus comprises a conduit for feeding the hydrogen-rich permeate gas to the PSA device for further processing and/or a conduit for combining hydrogen-rich permeate gas with the hydrogen product gas.
16. Apparatus according to claim 15 comprising an ammonia removal system upstream of the membrane separator.
17. Apparatus according to claim 16, wherein the ammonia removal system is located downstream of the PSA device for removing ammonia from the PSA tail gas.
18. Apparatus according to claim 16, wherein the ammonia removal system is located downstream of the at least one heat exchange and upstream of the PSA device for removing ammonia from the cracked gas.
19. Apparatus according to claim 16 comprising a PSA tail gas compressor downstream of the PSA device for compressing the PSA tail gas for the membrane separator 7.
20. Apparatus according to claim 16 comprising a hydrogen-rich permeate gas compressor downstream of the membrane separator for compressing the hydrogen-rich permeate gas for the PSA device and/or for combining with the hydrogen product gas.
21. Apparatus according to claim 16 comprising: a PSA tail gas compressor in fluid communication with the PSA device for compressing PSA tail gas; a heat exchanger in fluid communication with the PSA tail gas compressor for cooling compressed PSA tail gas by heat exchange against one or more cold fluids; a phase separator in fluid communication with the heat exchanger for separating condensed ammonia from cooled compressed PSA tail gas to form ammonia-depleted PSA tail gas; a conduit for supplying ammonia-depleted PSA tail gas from the phase separator to the membrane separator.
22. Apparatus according to claim 21 comprising a conduit for supplying the condensed ammonia to the pressurized liquid ammonia.
23. Apparatus according to claim 21, wherein the membrane separator comprises a first membrane separation unit and a second separation unit in series, said apparatus further comprising: a conduit for supplying ammonia-depleted PSA tail gas from the phase separator to the first membrane separation unit; a conduit for supplying the hydrogen-rich permeate gas from the first membrane separation unit to the PSA device for further processing; a conduit for supplying a nitrogen-enriched retentate gas from the first membrane separation unit to the second membrane separation unit; and a conduit for supplying another hydrogen-rich permeate gas from the second membrane unit to the PSA off gas.
24. Apparatus according to claim 16, wherein the membrane separator comprises a single membrane separation unit.
25. Apparatus according to claim 16 comprising a conduit for supplying nitrogen-rich retentate gas from the membrane separator to a vent.
26. Apparatus according to claim 25 comprising a turbine located downstream of the membrane separator for expanding nitrogen-rich permeate gas and recovering power.
27. Apparatus according to claim 26 comprising a heat exchanger located upstream of the turbine for heating nitrogen-rich permeate gas by heat exchange with one or more hot fluids.
28. Apparatus according to claim 16 comprising a nitrogen purification device in fluid communication with the membrane separator for purifying nitrogen-rich retentate gas to produce nitrogen gas product.
Description
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0072]
[0073]
[0074]
[0075]
[0076]
[0077]
[0078]
[0079]
[0080]
[0081]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0082] A process is described herein for producing hydrogen by cracking ammonia. The process has particular application to producing so-called “green” hydrogen which is hydrogen created using renewable energy instead of fossil fuels. In this case, the ammonia is typically produced by electrolyzing water using electricity generated from renewable energy, such as wind and/or solar energy, to produce hydrogen which is then reacted catalytically with nitrogen (Haber process) to produce the ammonia which is more easily transported than hydrogen. After reaching its destination, the ammonia is then cracked to regenerate the hydrogen.
[0083] In this inventive process, the heat required for the reaction is typically provided by combustion of PSA tail gas (which usually contains some amount of residual hydrogen and ammonia) in the furnace. If the PSA tail-gas has insufficient heating value than either vaporised ammonia, a portion of the product hydrogen, or an alternative fuel may be used with the tail-gas as a trim fuel.
[0084] In practice, natural gas could be used as a trim fuel, together with the PSA tail gas, as is practiced in SMRs for hydrogen. However, with the desire to maintain the “green” or renewable credentials of the hydrogen so produced, there is an incentive to use a “renewable fuel”. This can be the cracked “renewable” ammonia, the ammonia itself, or another renewable energy source, such as biogas, or indeed electric heating whether the electricity is itself from a renewable source, in this case local to the cracking process as opposed to the renewable electricity used to generate the hydrogen which has been transported in the form of ammonia.
[0085] A reference example of the process is shown in
[0086] The pressurised liquid ammonia (line 4) is then heated, vaporised (if it is below its critical pressure) and heated further, up to a temperature of greater than 250° C. via a heat exchanger (E101) using the heat available in the cracked gas leaving the reaction tubes and the flue gas from the furnace. In the figure, the heat exchanger (E101) is shown as one heat exchanger but, in practice, it will be a series of heat exchangers in a network.
[0087] The initial heating and vaporization of the pressurized liquid ammonia may alternatively take place against an alternative heat source, such as cooling water or ambient air. Typical reaction temperatures are greater than 500° C. (see US2601221), palladium-based systems can run at 600° C. and 10 bar, whereas RenCat’s metal oxide-based system runs at less than 300° C. and 1 bar. (See https://www.ammoniaenergy.org/articles/ammonia-craking-to-high-purity-hydrogen-for-pem-fuel-cells-in-denmark/). The operating pressure of the cracker is typically an optimization of several factors. Cracking of ammonia into hydrogen and nitrogen is favored by low pressure but other factors favor higher pressure, such as power consumption (which is minimized by pumping the feed ammonia rather than compressing the product hydrogen), and the PSA size (which is smaller at higher pressure).
[0088] The hot ammonia (line 6) enters reaction tubes of a reactor (8) at the desired pressure where additional heat is provided by the furnace (10) to crack the ammonia into nitrogen and hydrogen. The resulting mixture of residual ammonia, hydrogen and nitrogen exits (line 12) the reaction tubes of the reactor (8) at the reaction temperature and pressure. The reaction products are cooled in a heat exchanger (E101) against a combination of feed ammonia (from line 4), furnace fuel (in this case pumped ammonia from line 14, pump P202 and line 16; PSA tail gas from line 18; and product hydrogen to be used as fuel in line 20) and combustion air (from line 22, fan K201 and line 24) to reduce the temperature as close as possible to that required for the inlet of a PSA device (26). Any residual heat in the cracked gas mixture (line 28) is removed in a water cooler (not shown) to achieve an inlet temperature to the PSA device (26) of in a range from about 20° C. to about 60° C., e.g. about 50° C.
[0089] The PSA product (line 30) is pure hydrogen compliant with ISO standard 14687 - Hydrogen Fuel Quality - with residual ammonia < 0.1 ppmv and nitrogen < 300 ppmv - at approximately the reaction pressure. The product hydrogen (line 30) is further compressed (not shown) for filling into tube trailers (not shown) for transport or it may be liquefied in a hydrogen liquefier (not shown) after any required compression. The PSA tail gas (line 18) or “purge gas” from the PSA device (26) is shown as being heated via the heat exchanger E101, using the cracked gas (line 12) leaving the reaction tubes of the reactor (8) or furnace flue gas (line 32), before being sent (in line 36) to the furnace as a combustion fuel. However, the PSA tail gas (line 18) may be fed directly to the furnace (10) without heating.
[0090] The resultant warmed ammonia fuel (line 34) and warmed hydrogen (line 40) are depicted as combined with the (optionally) warmed PSA tail gas (line 36) in a mixer (42) to produce a combined fuel which is fed (line 44) to the furnace (10) for combustion to generate the flue gas (line 32 and, after cooling in E101, line 48). However, it should be noted that one or more of the fuels could be fed directly to the furnace without prior mixing. The warmed air (for combustion of the fuel) is fed to the furnace (10) in line 46.
[0091] One of the aims of preferred embodiments of the present process is to maximise the amount of hydrogen generated by cracking the renewable ammonia. That means minimising the amount of hydrogen used as fuel, or ammonia if ammonia were to be used as a fuel directly. Therefore, heat integration is important so as to use the hot flue gas and cracked gas appropriately, for instance to preheat air (line 24) and ammonia (line 4) to the cracker as this reduces the amount of “fuel” to be used in the burners of the furnace (10). This leads to higher hydrogen recovery as less of the hydrogen is lost in the furnace flue gas (lines 32 & 48) as water. Therefore, steam generation, for instance, should be minimised in favour of intra-process heat integration.
[0092]
[0093] The inventors are aware that stable combustion of ammonia is facilitated if hydrogen is also used as a fuel, particularly at start-up and warm-up.
[0094]
[0095] Should there be a viable alternative source of renewable energy for the cracking reactions, as discussed above, one could consider recovering hydrogen from the PSA tail gas to increase the net hydrogen production from the process in addition to the hydrogen produced from the PSA. Such a process could use membranes, which have a selective layer that is readily permeable to hydrogen but relatively impermeable to nitrogen, to separate hydrogen from the nitrogen rich PSA tail gas stream (
[0096] Ammonia may need to be removed particularly but not exclusively if membranes are being used as part of the separation process since membrane material can be intolerant of high concentrations of ammonia and ammonia is a fast gas and would permeate with the hydrogen so would accumulate in the process if not removed. Ammonia may be removed for instance by a water wash or other well-known technology for ammonia removal, upstream of the membrane. Ammonia may be recovered from an aqueous ammonia solution generated in the water wash using a stripping column and the recovered ammonia could be recycled to the feed to the cracking reactor. This could theoretically increase the hydrogen recovery from the process up to 100%. Recovering ammonia from the cracked gas simplifies the hydrogen purification steps, may increase the recovery of hydrogen from the ammonia if the separated ammonia is recovered as feed, and also removes ammonia from the feed to the burners, eliminating concerns over production of NO.sub.x caused by burning ammonia.
[0097] Water may also need to be removed from the feed ammonia to prevent damage to the ammonia cracking catalyst. Typically ammonia has small quantities of water added to it to prevent stress corrosion cracking in vessels during shipping and storage. This might need to be removed. However, the water removal can be incorporated into the stripping column mentioned above. The ammonia would be evaporated at the required pressure, taking care in the design of the evaporator to ensure that the water was also carried through to the stripping column with the evaporator ammonia. This mostly vapor phase ammonia enters a mid-point of the column and pure ammonia leaves through the top of the column. The column has a partial condenser (condenses only enough liquid for the reflux) and the overhead vapor contains the feed ammonia (free of water) plus the ammonia recovered from the cracker gas stream.
[0098] It may be more energy efficient to feed the cracked gas first to a membrane to produce a hydrogen-enriched permeate stream and a nitrogen-rich retentate stream that could be vented. The hydrogen-enriched permeate can be further purified in the PSA. A second membrane could be added to the PSA tail gas stream to further boost the overall hydrogen recovery. This configuration would greatly reduce the tail-gas compressor size.
[0099] The use of a membrane separator to increase hydrogen recovery allows the nitrogen to be vented from the process without passing through the combustion section of the process. In processes where the nitrogen stream is at pressure, it would be beneficial to expand the nitrogen to atmospheric pressure before venting to recover power through an expansion turbine. It would increase the amount of power recovered if the pressurized nitrogen were to be heated before expansion using heat available in the flue gas or cracked gas stream.
[0100]
[0101] A renewable fuel source (line 50) is warmed in the heat exchange (E101) and fed (line 52) to the furnace (10) for combustion to heat the catalyst-filled tubes of the cracking reactor (8).
[0102] The cooled cracked gas (line 28) is combined with compressed hydrogen-rich permeate gas (line 62) to form a combined gas which is fed (line 64) to the PSA device (26). The combined gas is separated to form the hydrogen product (line 30). The tail gas (line 54) from the PSA is compressed in a first compressor (K301) and the compressed gas is fed (line 56) to a membrane separation unit (M301) to produce an enriched hydrogen permeate stream (line 58) and a nitrogen-rich retentate stream (line 60). The membrane separation unit can consist of multiple membrane devices arranged in parallel or series as determined by the feed flow and desired hydrogen recovery. The permeate stream is compressed in a second compressor (K302) to form the compressed hydrogen-rich gas (line 62) which is recycled (line 64) to the PSA (26) with the cooled cracked gas (line 28) to increase overall rate of recovery of hydrogen.
[0103] Assuming the purity of the hydrogen produced by the membrane is sufficiently high, part (line 68) of the hydrogen permeate gas may be combined after compression with the hydrogen product (line 30), with the remainder being recycled (line 64) to the PSA with the cooled cracked gas (line 28). Combining part of the hydrogen permeate gas with the hydrogen product in this way would reduce the required size of the PSA and the power of K301 and K302.
[0104] Alternatively, all of the compressed hydrogen-rich permeate gas (line 62) may be combined with the hydrogen product (line 30) with none being recycled to the PSA (26).
[0105]
[0106] However, ammonia can also be condensed out of the compressed PSA off gas stream using the cold feed ammonia - that is shown in
[0107] In
[0108] Ammonia usually passes through the membrane with recycled hydrogen so the low temperature separator is a way of removing and recycling ammonia to the feed stream. This process also produces a purge stream (line 60) that may be around 98% nitrogen. Should this stream contain residual ammonia, then it would need to be treated before it can be vented. However, the purge stream is at pressure and could be purified to produce a product nitrogen stream.
[0109] Overall, the process depicted in
[0110]
[0111] In
[0112] The power requirement in
[0113] The present invention is not to be limited in scope by the specific aspects or embodiments disclosed in the examples which are intended as illustrations of a few aspects of the invention and any embodiments that are functionally equivalent are within the scope of this invention. Various modifications of the invention in addition to those shown and described herein will become apparent to those skilled in the art and are intended to fall within the scope of the appended claims.
[0114] The invention will now be illustrated with reference to the following Invention Examples and by comparison with the following Reference Examples. For the purposes of the simulations, both the Invention Examples and the Reference Examples assume an equilibrium for the cracking reaction at 11 bar and 500° C.
Reference Example 1
[0115] The process depicted in
[0116] In this Reference Example, hydrogen recovery from the ammonia is 77.18% with the PSA recovery at 83.5%. The total power of the ammonia feed pump (P201), the ammonia fuel pump (P202) and the air fan (K201) is about 1.36 kW.
Reference Example 2
[0117] The process depicted in
[0118] In this Reference Example, hydrogen recovery from the ammonia is 77.05% with the PSA recovery at 79.4%. The total power of the ammonia feed pump (P201) and the air fan (K201) is about 1.37 kW.
Invention Example 1
[0119] The process depicted in
[0120] In this Invention Example, hydrogen recovery from the ammonia is 98.95%. In addition, the total compression power requirement (PSA off gas compressor and membrane compressor) is about 60.59 kW.
Invention Example 2
[0121] The process depicted in
[0122] In this Invention Example, hydrogen recovery from the ammonia is 98.95%. In addition, the total compression power requirement (PSA off gas compressor alone) is about 56.54 kW.