CHE.09 – Turquoise Hydrogen: A Stepping Stone into the Future

• Zain Alsalhani
• Miriam Jabr
• Gary Ko
• Jacob Miller

Hydrogen is an important aspect of the prospect of generating clean energy in the future. To this end, many methods are currently utilized to create hydrogen, most prominently steam methane reformation (SMR), which is considered environmentally unclean due to leaving high levels of greenhouse gases. Many manufacturing sectors have been focusing on new technologies that employ different methods of producing hydrogen in a cleaner way, including electrolysis, carbon capture, and pyrolysis. Turquoise hydrogen is a method that shows extreme promise, utilizing pyrolysis of natural gas—methane—to create hydrogen. In a perfect world, the pyrolysis of methane results in both pure black carbon and hydrogen production. The main issue to address, then, is investigating practical and realistic methods of utilizing turquoise hydrogen. The reasoning behind choosing turquoise hydrogen lies in its unique characteristic of emitting no greenhouse gases which approximately eliminates 1.9–6.4 kg CO2 eq./kg H2. as well as its potential high economic value due to the ability to sell black carbon on the market, as both hydrogen and high purity carbon sell for about $1.5 – $2 per kilogram. After further investigation, we discovered a working pyrolysis unit in Georgia during 2023. This discovery led to the development of a scaled-up design basis for our plant in the Gulf Coast, where tax incentives like 45V and friendly positions in Texas’s Hydrogen City would create an promising opening with access to the Texas pipeline by Kinder Morgan which would be able to provide the necessary infrastructure for a new turquoise hydrogen-focused plant with the goal of producing 125 MM SCFT per day. This value creates further incentive for the construction of the plant, which would be repaid within a few years of operation.