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Natural Gas "Cleaning" Extracts Valuable Waste Carbon
Al writes "There's been a lot of focus on "clean coal" lately, but a Canadian start-up called Atlantic Hydrogen is developing a way to make natural gas more environmentally friendly. The process involves using a plasma reactor to separate hydrogen and methane in the gas. The procedure also turns carbon emissions into high-purity carbon black, a substance that is used to make inks, plastics and reinforced rubber products. Utility companies could potentially sell the carbon black, making the process more financially attractive."
Current processes
Carbon black production
Hydrocarbon + O2 -> C (carbon black) + H2O + CO2 + other carbon-containing waste
Hydrogen production by steam reforming (requires energy input)
CH4 + H2O -> CO + 3H2
"New" process (also requires energy input)
CH4 -> C + H2
So looked at as a method of carbon black and hydrogen production, it certainly seems better, but it depends on the relative amounts of energy used for steam reforming versus the "new" process. But if you basically throw away the hydrogen by mixing it back in with the natural gas (as the article suggests), you're wasting a lot of the gain that would be achieved by displacing the steam reforming process.
I'm not really buying the idea that hydrogen-enriched natural gas will burn more cleanly. It will produce less CO2, true, but at the price of less energy per unit volume. And natural gas can already be burned less completely.
I put the scare quotes around "new" because this isn't a new process. According to Wikipedia, not only was it developed (by Kvaerner) in the 1980s, it's actually already in use in Norway for producing hydrogen and carbon black.
What's wrong with Biodiesel if you don't mind me asking? Honest question.
My Babylon
On the other hand, there is a large market for carbon black. If you remove the carbon and sell it, while getting the energy from the hydrogen, your biogas is now carbon-negative, which is even better. Whether it could be economical or not likely depends on things like cap and trade -- with no incentives for being carbon-negative, it probably doesn't make sense economically, with them it might, depending on the size.
a lot of schemes like this look great on paper, until you consider the energy expenditure involved in running the thing
who knows, maybe carbon black is worth more than the extra methane it costs to run the thing. that would make it financially friendly. but its certainly not environmentally friendly, when you consider the extra methane consumption
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You're looking at it backwards. It should really be viewed as a more efficient way of producing carbon black (which there is a huge market for, btw -- it's a major component of tire rubber, rubber hoses, and similar plastics) that happens to have some nice side effects (like producing an enriched natural gas with cleaner combustion properties).
The current carbon black production techniques involve sooty combustion of hydrocarbon fuels; the energy from that process is normally wasted, since it's in a form that is difficult to recapture. This process manages to waste less energy, since the electricity input is modest and some of the electrical energy and fossil fuel energy spend making the carbon black is stored in the H2, which can be used productively by enriching the unused portion of the natural gas stream.
(Also, there's no reason the electricity to run this *has* to come from fossil fuels. It could come from nuclear or renewable sources. It's the same as electric cars -- saying "but the electricity comes from fossil fuels!" is true but misses the point -- it's easier to swap out your electric source later on than to swap your car / chemical plant. Going to a process that can easily choose a cleaner energy source is a good thing, even if that source won't be available immediately.)
It does clog the injectors if the bio portion of the ratio is too high. The state of Minnesota requires all diesel in the state to be a biodiesel blend. During winter months the blend is lowered to 2 percent biodiesel.
It is really good stuff. It acts as an upper cylinder lubricant and, as Tubesteak has stated, cleans the fuel system.