Originally Posted By: Subdued
My old man works at Olin.
I deal with them every day! Small world.
Originally Posted By: Shannow
JTK,
where does most of the industrial H2 come from ?
I built/commissioned a Knowles Cell bank early 90s, which we decommissioned a decade later, as security of H2 and cost of supply pushed the plant out (rightfully)
The biggest volume of H2 feedstock comes as a byproduct of the chlorine and bleach production industry. We buy roughly 300-600KCFH feedstock that way, clean it up and liquify it. It takes mass quantities of liquid nitrogen to use as refrigeration for the beginning stages of the process and of course, lots of megawatts of juice. A lot of our air separation capacity is used for refrigeration in the LH2 plants.
The #2 method these days is cracking it from natural gas with the use of a steam-methane reformer. Thing is, if you want to transport it at any volume long distance, you still have to liquify it and transport it by vacuum insulated tanker.
Electrolysis from water works too, but it's very low volume.