AIChE Journal Highlight: Hydrogen Production via Chemical Looping Dry Reforming of Methane

The increasing urgency to decarbonize industry and reduce the carbon footprint of an ever-growing world population has spurred interest in hydrogen. Hydrogen can help decarbonize processes that are difficult to electrify and can be used as a carbon-free energy carrier for energy storage and transportation. However, no significant natural sources of hydrogen gas exist, so it must be produced from naturally occurring hydrogen-rich compounds.

Currently, hydrogen is generated almost exclusively via steam reforming of methane (SRM), a large-scale industrial process in which methane, the main component of natural gas, is reacted with steam in the presence of a catalyst to produce a mixture of carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H₂). This mixture is typically referred to as synthesis gas. A closely related alternative to SRM is dry reforming of methane (DRM), where steam is replaced by CO₂ as the oxidant, producing a similar synthesis gas mixture as SRM albeit with a different ratio of CO and H₂. In either case, the produced synthesis gas must be purified and separated in further process steps to obtain the high purity required for most hydrogen applications (>99.97% for fuel cell applications). Overall, these processes cause significant...