Efficient hydrogen production with CO2 capture using gas switching reforming (GSR): Techno-economic assessment

Hydrogen is identified as one of the clean energy carriers in the future energy scenario. This work presents a process to produce low cost hydrogen with CO2 capture using gas switching reforming (GSR). The process steps include GSR, water-gas shift, pure hydrogen recovery in pressure-swing adsorption process and CO2 and hydrogen compression trains. The overall process, denoted as GSR-H2, produces 99.999% pure hydrogen with >96% CO2 capture. In this study, GSR-H2 is compared economically with the conventional steam-methane reforming (SMR) plant that produces hydrogen without CO2 capture. GSR-H2 produces 10% more hydrogen when compared to the SMR plant, but consumes significant imported electricity. The cost of hydrogen produced from the GSR-H2 and SMR plant is similar (1.67 €/kg-H2) with a CO2 tax of only 20 €/ton, even with GSR-H2 being a near zero emission plant. In a future energy scenario where the CO2 emission tax is high and the electricity price is low, GSR-H2 will significantly outperform the conventional SMR plant.