BIO FRIENDS PROPOSES TO HELP ACHIEVE KOREA's HYDROGEN ECONOMY GOALS
(MENAFN- B2Press) Company will use dc plasma technology for producing clean hydrogenand electroconductive carbon black SOUTH KOREA – Bio Friends, Inc., the world's leading manufacturer of dimethyl ether (DME) announced that it will expand its business interests to include the production of clean hydrogen and electroconductive carbon black (ECB).
In addition to its use as a fuel, this hydrogen will also be combined with captured CO2 to make eMethanol and eDME.
“After carefully examining all the available methods of making hydrogen, we have decided to use the DC plasma technology offered by Prime Plasma, Inc. that can convert any aliphatic hydrocarbon such as biogas, renewable natural gas, methane or ethane into pure hydrogen and electroconductive carbon black,” said Dr. Wonjun Cho, CEO of Bio Friends.
“Plus, the Prime Plasma process gives us a unique advantage because it is 100% environmentally friendly with zero CO2 emissions.”
The primary application of the hydrogen plants offered by Bio Friends will be to supply fuel for refilling stations and fuel cell electric vehicles (automobiles and trucks) in Korea.
By 2040, it is expected that Korea will have 1,200 refilling stations to meet the requirements of 6.2 million fuel cell electric vehicles.
Hyundai is clearly recognized as the leader in this rapidly developing industry.
Potential end users in Korea of the ECB to be made by Bio Friends include companies such as Denka, Orion, Nouryon, Lion Specialty Chemicals and Birla Carbon.
“Our DC process is clearly more superior than the AC version,” notes Dr. Ravi Randhava, President of Prime Plasma.
“Power requirements are lower, and the extremely high temperature and absence of sputtering in the plasma zone yield a higher quality of carbon black.”
Prime Plasma's DC technology requires less than 25% of the thermodynamic energy needed for making hydrogen by electrolysis of water or by steam methane reforming (SMR).
Plus, electrolysis does not generate a high revenue earning coproduct such as electroconductive carbon black.
SMR has its own problems in terms of carbon dioxide emissions and potential disposal and storage.
Prime Plasma's process is also significantly superior versus two other recently proposed hydrogen production methods, namely pyrolysis of methane using a molten metal bath, and the low temperature plasma approach in combination with a catalyst.
An engineering study conducted by Bio Friends and Prime Plasma shows that its basic design configured to make 7 tons/day of 99.99% pure hydrogen and 21.2 tons/day of ECB will need a methane (pipeline natural gas or purified biogas) feed rate of 28.8 tons/day and 5 MW of electric power that can be sourced from the grid, solar or wind farm, or a local generating set.
The prevailing market value of ECB is $2,000-$3,000 per ton.
A scaled down version to make 2.5 tons/day of hydrogen has also been developed for lower volume applications.
Contact: Tülay Genç | [email protected] | +31 30 799 6022
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