Energy technologies business Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) and the utility Black Hills Energy have received a $16m grant from the Wyoming Energy Authority to fund permitting, engineering and development activities for a clean hydrogen generation facility with carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and sequestration. The project is slated for Black Hills Energy’s Neil Simpson Power Plant in Gillette, Wyoming.
The plant design is planned to use B&W’s BrightLoop technology to produce clean energy from coal, while CO2 emissions will be sequestered or utilised. As designed, the plant will be capable of producing 15 tonnes of clean hydrogen per day, utilising the BrightLoop process, which is a patented chemical looping system.
“We’re excited that this important project is advancing to the next phase of development, and we thank the State of Wyoming and the Wyoming Energy Authority for supporting our efforts,” said B&W Chief Technology Officer Brandy Johnson.
“We look forward to working closely with our partner, Black Hills Energy, as we complete engineering, begin construction, and move towards completion of this commercial-scale project.”
“Black Hills Energy is proud to partner with B&W and we’re excited about this project’s potential,” said Mark Lux, Vice-President of Power Delivery for Black Hills Energy.
What is BrightLoop?
B&W’s BrightLoop chemical looping technology is part of its ClimateBright suite of decarbonisation and hydrogen technologies. The BrightLoop process uses a proprietary, regenerable particle and has been demonstrated to effectively separate CO2 while producing hydrogen, steam or syngas.
It works by utilising a variety of solid and gaseous fuels as feedstock to produce a stream of nearly pure hydrogen separate from a stream of CO2.
It is a novel chemical looping process that is based on the oxidation and reduction of an oxygen carrier particle. The feedstock reacts with oxygen-carrier particles in a fuel reactor, forming reaction products which are predominantly CO2, while reducing the oxygen-carrier particles.
The reduced oxygen-carrier particles then move to a hydrogen reactor where they react with steam to partially oxidize the particles and generate a stream of hydrogen. This reaction means that the hydrogen is produced from the steam – it is not separated from the other constituents of the feedstock.
The oxygen-carrier particles are then transported to an air reactor where they are regenerated with air back to their original state. The products of these reactors are predominantly concentrated nitrogen with minimal oxygen. The fully regenerated particles are then returned to the fuel reactor to continue the ‘loop’ process. The fuel and hydrogen reactors use moving-bed technology while the air reactor uses fluidised-bed technology.
Gaseous products generated in each reactor are cooled using various heat exchangers including steam generators that produce the steam needed to create hydrogen and cleaned of undesirable emissions using standard environmental control technologies.
The process can also be configured to produce steam for process or electricity generation, or syngas for liquid fuel or methanol production, all with CO2 isolation.
End to end, the process greatly reduces the amount of energy and fossil fuel required to produce hydrogen from hydrocarbons while also isolating the carbon dioxide.
Decarbonisation Summit 2024: Industrial Gases and Clean Energies 3.0
The global industrial gas and equipment business has an imperative role to play in the future of clean fuels and decarbonisation. The energy transition simply won’t happen without it.
At the same time, the industry has its own activities to decarbonise and circular economies to carve out – think green air gases and bio-based carbon dioxide (CO2), as well as CO2 utilisation and e-fuels, and so much more besides.
There are pathways to progress and questions to answer on this journey, not least:
- What are the compelling clean fuels and what do the pathways to production look like?
- How can the gases industry participate in this playground of opportunities?
- What can other alternative fuels mean for the CO2 industry and its stakeholders?
These questions and more will be in the spotlight at gasworld’s Decarbonisation Summit in April 2024. Interested in speaking and contributing? Get in touch with our Content Director, Rob Cockerill, at [email protected]
To attend, sponsor and for more information, visit https://bit.ly/GWDECARB-S24
