Project description
Enabling hydrogen production with zero carbon dioxide
The EU-funded ColdSpark project plans to develop innovative technology for eliminating CO2 emissions stemming from conventional hydrogen production. The novel solution is to produce sustainable hydrogen from methane or biomethane, on the grounds that the use of cold plasma would yield an energy conversion rate of 85 % with zero CO2 emissions. The proposed solution eliminates the need for catalysts and water, rendering hydrogen production cost-competitive, environmentally friendly and easy to implement. The plasma reactor will be modular and flexible, while reduced CAPEX and OPEX will enable its deployment at a large scale.
Objective
The ColdSpark project will validate a novel non-thermal plasma technology to produce hydrogen at an industrial scale from methane, with a process energy efficiency of 79%, achieving a conversion rate of 85% with zero CO2 emissions. This will be achieved by designing an industrial relevant reactor that leverages the best features of the non-thermal plasma technologies, gliding arc and corona discharge, to ensure high efficiency and scalability. The innovation addresses for the first time the critical step of matching the reactor with a pulsed power supply. It enables a perfect fine-tuning of the cracking process parameters, to find the right electron density and energy distribution in the plasma reactor, to maximise energy efficiency. The up- and downstream gas management will be optimised to further contribute to the system’s compatibility to existing infrastructure. The project will develop and test a novel plasma reactor at lab scale and validate it in conjunction with the power supply at large-scale, pursuing the industry’s most power efficient generation of hydrogen alongside high-value carbon. The technology will assess its application for both, natural gas and biomethane producers. A low energy cost (< 15 kWh/kg H2 produced) without the need for catalysts and water, makes the proposed solution the most cost-competitive, environment-friendly, and less complex to implement. The reactor design and modularity bring lower CAPEX and OPEX and make it easily scalable and flexible. The project gathers the expertise of a mix of academic, research, and industrial partners from five countries, which bring both outstanding research and topic competence, as well as knowledge and access to the solution for end-user industries.
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HORIZON-RIA - HORIZON Research and Innovation ActionsCoordinator
4313 Sandnes
Norway