Hickory-prosjektet studerte kritiske aspekter ved Hydrogen Source Hydrogen Generation from Hydrocarbons Sub-terrain (HGHS) prosess ved å konvertere hydrokarboner til hydrogen under overflaten, separere og beholde drivhusgasser i reservoaret og unngå produksjon av svart karbon. Hickory-prosjektet tok for seg viktige mekanismer i HGHS-prosessen - in-situ kjemiske katalytiske reaksjoner av hydrogengenerering ved reservoarforhold, og separasjon av gasser i reservoaret.
Primært prosjektmål var å forbedre forståelsen av katalytiske kjemiske og geokjemiske mekanismer som styrer hydrogengenerering fra hydrokarboner under overflaten, og senere bygge dette inn i en adaptiv prosesskontrollløsning som forbereder HGHS feltapplikasjon. Sekundære mål var:
1. Optimaliser injeksjonstemperaturer, -hastigheter og komponentkonsentrasjoner for å oppnå ønsket pre-markørplassering, forbedre reservoarsveip med temperaturfront og kjemisk konvertering.
2. Katalytisk systeminnstilling for HGHS-prosessen.
3. Evaluer geokjemiske reaksjoner som følger med HGHS-prosessen.
4. Undersøk separasjon av gasser in situ etter metankonvertering til hydrogen.
5. Kalibrere og utvikle HGHS prosessmodeller.
6. Optimalisere produksjonsregimer for hydrogenfelt.
7. Evaluer effektiviteten av HGHS-prosessen i feltapplikasjonen.
Både hoved- og sekundære prosjektmål ble nådd, men med forsinkelse på grunn av uforutsette forhold.
Hydrogen Source AS continue working towards further development of hydrogen technologies, preparation for field application HGHS demonstration project as well as alternative usage of its low footprint HGHS technology for offshore application on the NCS for depleted gas-condensate and gas-oil fields and potential for blue ammonia production offshore.
Results of this project improved fundamental understanding of key aspects of the said technologies and HGHS process: catalytic conversion of hydrocarbons to hydrogen in situ, propagation of temperature and conversion fronts in the reservoir, separation and segregation of phases and gasses in-situ, establishment of representative modelling and simulation tools.
One of the outstanding industrial challenges is production of environmentally clean and cheap hydrogen. Hydrogen Source AS (HSAS) is an IP rights owner for Hydrogen Generation from Hydrocarbons Sub-terrain the (HGHS) process allowing to produce hydrogen by converting methane to hydrogen subsurface, retaining greenhouse gases in the reservoir and avoiding black carbon production.
The essence of the process is to inject pre-designed aqueous solution of metal salt into a gas reservoir and follow it up with air or oxygen injection (or overheated steam with microwave downhole reactors) to initiate in-situ combustion / oxidation and catalytic cracking of methane. Increased reservoir temperature will lead to thermal breakdown of the salt forming nano-scale metal particles. Such nano-catalyst – a form significantly more active than traditional surface catalysts, will promote methane conversion to hydrogen in a slurry type process right in the gas reservoir. After conversion is completed the injection will stop allowing gravity to segregate heavier CO2, remaining water and methane as well as other by-products from lighter hydrogen. Downhole membranes can be used in production wells to remove eventual minor concentrations of unwanted gas components of generated synthetic gas from the production stream of hydrogen. Hickory project is an industrial research on new method of hydrogen production. The project will bring HGHS technology from current TRL level 3 to 4-5 and therefore contribute to preparation of the technology validation and demonstration in relevant environment. The project addresses primarily the chemical technological components of the HGHS process at field conditions, combining carefully designed experiments with scale up and modelling so that field trials can later be performed in an optimal way.
Project consortia consists of the technology owner, two research partners (NORCE and Imperial College) and experienced service provider / consultancy company AGR.