New technology makes natural gas clean and green

Using hydrogen to clean up fossil fuels

December 10, 2007
Tyler Hamilton, TheStar.com

Hydrogen might be an emission-free fuel when burned or put through a fuel cell, but given that fuel-cell cars for the mass market are at least a decade away – if they ever come – what if hydrogen could be used today to clean up a fossil fuel we already depend on, such as natural gas?

We use natural gas as fuel for corporate and municipal vehicle fleets, to provide power generation, and to heat our homes and buildings. The infrastructure is well developed. If we can use what we have and at the same time reduce the greenhouse gas and smog-causing emissions that result from it, then some argue it makes sense to pursue it as one slice of a larger climate-mitigation strategy.

A Fredericton-based company called Atlantic Hydrogen Inc. is making impressive inroads in this regard, having developed a new technology that can remove carbon from natural gas and replace it with hydrogen.

"Effectively what we're doing is greening the gas," says David Wagner, president and chief operating officer of Atlantic Hydrogen, which is attempting to commercialize technology developed at McGill University by chemist David Fletcher and later transferred to the University of New Brunswick.

"We are aware that in Ontario a company called Bullfrog Power is out there selling green power, so why can't we sell green gas? It's the same concept, different fuel. That's what has a number of gas companies we've talked to quite excited about this."

The company's technology is called CarbonSaver – basically a low-temperature plasma reactor that uses low amounts of energy and, according to Wagner, doesn't emit greenhouse gases. When natural gas flows through the CarbonSaver device it disassociates hydrogen and carbon from a portion of the gas. The carbon is removed in solid form as a kind of black dust. The hydrogen is injected back into the natural gas stream, representing between 15 and 20 per cent of its volume.

Wagner calls the resulting product "hydrogen-enriched natural gas" – that is, green gas. It can be used as a fuel in any internal combustion engine that would normally use natural gas, but it burns much cleaner. This also applies to natural gas appliances, such as stoves and furnaces, and gas turbines.

"By putting just 15 to 20 per cent hydrogen in with the natural gas, without making changes to an engine except tuning it for a lean burn, you could reduce harmful emissions like nitrogen oxides by anywhere from 50 to 60 per cent," explains Wagner. "So that really caught our eye."

He said natural gas with a 20 per cent blend of hydrogen also results in a 7 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide, or CO{-2}.

Atlantic Hydrogen is currently studying potential uses for this solid carbon, which could be used in making inks, dyes, plastics and tires, not to mention super-lightweight carbon composite parts for vehicles and airplanes.

It could also be permanently stored in soil – used alongside fertilizer to regenerate depleted farmland. This approach, often referred to as biochar sequestration, could fetch revenues in the form of saleable carbon credits.

Enbridge Gas Distribution is working with Atlantic Hydrogen on a three-year project partly funded by Sustainable Development Technology Canada, which pitched in $2 million. The company, which got early financial support from East Coast cable pioneer Bill Stanley, has also raised over $5 million in private equity financing and is in the process of building its first demonstration units.

Full article continued at:

Atlantic Hydrogen technology to clean natural gas

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