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Cooking With Gas

Air Liquide prepares for a run-up in hydrogen use to improve petroleum-based fuels

by Marc S. Reisch
January 9, 2006 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 84, Issue 2

Clean Sweep
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Credit: Air Liquide Photo
Air Liquide's 85-acre Bayport, Texas, plant will soon supply more hydrogen to refiners for low-sulfur fuel production.
Credit: Air Liquide Photo
Air Liquide's 85-acre Bayport, Texas, plant will soon supply more hydrogen to refiners for low-sulfur fuel production.

Like other industrial gas firms, Air Liquide has been looking toward the day when the now experimental hydrogen-powered fuel-cell cars will revolutionize the auto industry.

And like its competitors, the French industrial gases firm doesn't just envision supplying hydrogen as a transportation fuel for some vague future based on a so-called hydrogen economy. Instead, Air Liquide and its major competitors-Air Products & Chemicals, BOC Group, and Praxair-expect demand for hydrogen to grow because of the need for clean energy from petroleum-based sources.

To emphasize the growth in hydrogen demand from refiners, Air Liquide hosted about 30 analysts and a few journalists on a tour of the firm's hydrogen assets along the U.S. Gulf Coast at the end of December. And although the trip allowed everyone a chance to drive a General Motors hydrogen-powered fuel-cell-equipped minivan, that treat showed that the technology still has its limits.

Employing hydrogen to improve the usability and environmental profile of petroleum-based fuels is on the rise, explained Pierre Dufour, executive vice president of Air Liquide. In fact, he predicts that between 2006 and 2011, refineries will need the equivalent of more than 70 world-scale hydrogen units, each costing about $100 million and producing about 100 million standard cubic feet per day (scf/day). Include existing plants that are slated for replacement because they've reached the end of their useful life, and more than 80 units will be required by 2011.

Refiners today use hydrogen in a variety of ways. Refiners hydrocrack heavy South American crude oil and heavy oil from Canada's oil sands. Hydrocracking upgrades these more difficult to refine crude oils into lighter and easier to refine products. Refiners also count on hydrogen to hydrotreat "sour" crudes, which removes sulfur from gasoline and diesel to meet specifications for cleaner burning fuels.

Globally, refiners produce about 90% of the hydrogen they use today, Dufour pointed out. In many cases, they purify and reuse hydrogen generated in the refining process, and they operate their own hydrogen plants at the refinery. Industrial gas companies like Air Liquide serve refiners by supplying additional hydrogen that refiners may need and also by processing refinery off-gas and returning a high-purity hydrogen gas to refiners.

Refiners are likely to build many of the new hydrogen units they need themselves, Dufour acknowledged. But in many cases, he argued, refiners could reduce the financial burdens they will have to assume as they increase capacity by letting a firm such as Air Liquide take on the capital cost to build and operate at least some of the new hydrogen plants. And he predicted that industrial gas producers would build at least one-third of the new units needed.

If refiners don't want all the hydrogen that a new world-scale unit would produce, they could contract for part of the output, and gas producers could distribute the remainder via pipeline to nearby refiners or chemical plants. Air Liquide operates four hydrogen pipeline systems along the Texas and Louisiana coasts, Dufour said, with a total capacity of 200 million scf/day, increasing to 400 million scf/day in 2006.

To show off its ability to supply and distribute hydrogen to customers, Air Liquide took its Gulf Coast visitors to see a new hydrogen-producing steam methane reformer being built in Bayport, Texas. The unit will have a capacity of 100 million scf/day-the largest hydrogen reformer that the firm will own-when it is completed in May, Dufour said.

At this time, the reformer is a maze of pipes and steel framing being assembled at the 85-acre steam cogeneration and air separation facility that the firm operates. About half of the reformer unit's hydrogen output will go to a ConocoPhillips refinery in Sweeny, Texas, to produce the new ultra-low-sulfur highway diesel fuel mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Air Liquide also took its guests to see its operations in Freeport, Texas, which include another reformer, air separation units, and pipeline operations. In addition, the firm operates a unit at the Dow Chemical Freeport plant that purifies hydrogen that Dow generates as a coproduct of chlorine and ethylene production. Air Liquide then pipes the hydrogen to a series of GM fuel cells-prototypes for fuel cells that may one day be installed in cars-as part of a program to test the fuel cells and generate up to 35 MW of power for use in Dow's operations (C&EN, Feb. 6, 2004, page 12).

Fuel cells similar to those at the Freeport site powered the GM HydroGen3 minivans that visitors had an opportunity to drive. According to a GM spokesman, the prototype cost $1 million to build and has a driving range of about 150 miles on compressed hydrogen.

The minivan operated much like a normal vehicle, but because of its cost, limited range, and the lack of an infrastructure to safely distribute hydrogen, the GM representative admitted that such vehicles were not yet ready for "prime time." So for the near future, a hydrogen economy is unlikely, but hydrogen-improved petroleum-derived fuels are here.

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