IHI announced that they have installed a prototype hydrogen manufacturing device which utilizes natural gas pyrolysis at Yokohama Works, and that the prototype device has begun operations from December. The company will start by manufacturing 10 kg of hydrogen per day, and in the future they will aim to increase this amount to about 100 tons. By around 2025-2029, the company plans to have the device put to actual use in the US and Australia, where it is possible to utilize renewable energy-based heat sources, iron ore and natural gas.
Compared to conventional steam reforming, natural gas pyrolysis reduces the amount of necessary energy for producing hydrogen by around 40%. In addition, IHI will utilize a novel method which uses iron ore as a catalyst to reduce costs. As for the carbon generated through pyrolysis, the aforementioned method enables the recovery of over 90% of the carbon in solid form.
IHI’s Technological Development Headquarters will operate the prototype device to acquire data. IHI has developed fluidization technologies for their boilers and other products, and they will utilize these technologies for handling the iron ore. Through these measures IHI will aim to scale up the manufacturing volume.
For the manufacturing of hydrogen, it is predicted that the use of water electrolysis will spread in the future, but during the transition period until the use of water electrolysis becomes more common, it is expected that various organizations will utilize their existing natural gas facilities for manufacturing hydrogen. For this field, IHI will pursue the development of affordable natural gas pyrolysis technologies with low CO2 emissions.
