Harvesting Hydrogen

by Susanne Retka Schill (Ethanol Producer Magazine) The largest ethanol producer in Brazil has teamed up with a hydrogen technology company, along with others, to build what is believed to be the world’s first ethanol-to-hydrogen fueling station. Located on Brazil’s University of Sao Paulo campus, by mid-year the pilot plant will begin fueling three buses and a car powered by hydrogen fuel cells. Planning is also underway for a 10-fold scale-up to serve as a demonstration of how the technology could be used in an industrial facility.

Raízen and Hytron are behind the project, with several other entities supporting it. The Brazilian National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP) is involved as is the University of Sao Paulo’s Research Center for Greenhouse Gases Innovation, which will validate costs and emissions. The SENAI Institute for Innovation in Biosynthetic and Fibers will conduct computer simulations to optimize the process. And Toyota is providing a Mirai hydrogen fuel cell vehicle to the project, which is being funded through a R$50 million investment by Shell Brasil, in compliance with the RD&I clause established by ANP.

In an industrial setting, hydrogen produces three times the power of an equal amount of natural gas, says Hytron’s commercial director Daniel Lopes. But hydrogen isn’t the only useful industrial target. Because the chemical industry is based on organic chemistry—the carbon side—he believes biogenic carbon dioxide will be an important source in the future for chemical companies seeking to defossilize.

Founded in 2003, Hytron is a spin-off from the hydrogen laboratory at the University of Campinas in the state of Sao Paulo in southeastern Brazil. By 2014, the company had developed its first pilot-scale ethanol-to-hydrogen unit with industrial components.

Hytron’s first-stage reactor combines ethanol and water as steam with the aid of a catalyst to produce steam reformer gas. “The main component is hydrogen,” Lopes explains, “the second is CO—carbon monoxide—and a small percentage of other components. After that, we have two other reactors. In the high temperature shift-reactor we react the CO with water (steam) again and produce CO2 plus hydrogen. After that, we have a PSA system—pressure swing adsorption—for purification of the hydrogen to 99.99 percent.”

The University of Sao Paulo fueling station is essentially a pilot-scale project, with a target production of 5 kilos (12 pounds) of hydrogen per hour.

As for carbon intensity (CI), he says the potential is there to meet net zero, or even negative CI, largely dependent upon the feedstock and the ability to move towards renewable fuels for transport.

Feedstock from Energy Parks
The feedstock for the university pilot plant is coming from Raízen (pronounced hi-ee-son).

“Here in Brazil, we use bagasse to produce steam for our process.” Currently, excess steam capacity is used to generate electricity as a coproduct, which also helps to lower CI, but M. Lopes (Mateus Lopes, Raízen’s global director for energy transition and investments) says weak electricity prices that are projected to continue in the future are behind the company’s decision to divert bagasse from electrical generation to second-generation ethanol production.

“Hydrogen will be such an important market in the future and if ethanol can play a role, somehow, even if a small role, it could be really significant in comparison to the volume of ethanol that we produce today.”

While ammonia and methanol are often talked about as hydrogen carriers for transcontinental shipping, M. Lopes says there’s a case to be made for ethanol. “Ethanol is very easy to transport. It’s non-toxic. It’s liquid at room temperature. If you talk about ammonia, it’s highly toxic. If there is a leak in the ocean, you kill everything within kilometers. Methanol is also toxic. Ethanol seems to be an elegant solution and complementary.”

Hytron’s Daniel Lopes agrees. “We need to open the eyes of stakeholders. Why not use a feedstock that is logistically ready to transport hydrogen right now—ethanol?” Hytron’s goal is to scale to a size that could be used in ports around the world to produce hydrogen and biogenic CO2 to replace fossil sources in multiple processes. When looking at sustainable aviation fuels, he points out, leading technology starts with Fischer-Tropsch syngas. “What is that? Syngas is hydrogen plus CO. The first gas we produce is hydrogen plus CO.”

Raízen’s Mateus Lopes advocates Brazil and the U.S. work together to improve ethanol’s profile.

“More and more we don’t need to think about ethanol from sugarcane or corn, or from Brazil or the U.S. or India. We need to create this united voice where we echo the possibilities and work together to develop new solutions from lignocellulosic ethanol, hydrogen, diesel, aviation, chemicals. The potential of those applications is huge.” READ MORE