An efficient and cheap way to produce hydrogen fuel from oil fields

Asia Dia

As a precursor to the international community's path towards investment and research in renewable energy, researchers from the University of Calgary, Canada, in collaboration with the Proton Technologies Foundation, have taken a new approach in extracting hydrogen gas from oil sands (natural bitumen) and oil fields at low cost.

From 18 to 23 August, the Gold Schmidt Conference on Geochemistry was held in Barcelona, ​​where the research team announced an effective method - not an economic burden - to produce hydrogen gas on a large scale, relying on it as a sustainable energy source in electricity production, and also as fuel. For cars, buses and trains.

Despite the emergence of hydrogen-powered compounds several years ago, the high cost of hydrogen production has prevented it from being relied upon as an alternative to hydrocarbons.

chemical reaction
To produce hydrogen from oilfields, the researchers pumped oxygen gas into the oil wells and oil sands reservoirs, thereby increasing temperatures inside the wells, then the gases go up and the carbon settles down. To separate hydrogen gas, the researchers used filters specially designed to pass hydrogen gas only through them, while preventing the rise of other gases.

Ian Gates, a professor of engineering chemistry and principal investigator, said the wells do not contain hydrogen at all. "We would only have a chemical reaction catalyzed by oxygen," he said.

He also says that there are vast oil fields in many countries, especially Alberta in Canada and Venezuela, "and we can produce hydrogen in huge quantities."

Effective and low cost
"The cost of production using this new technology is from 10 to 50 cents per kilo, compared to $ 2 for older technologies, which means that the economic cost of this technology is very low compared to the cost of obtaining shale fuel," says Grant Stream, executive director of Proton Technologies, a marketing and commercial intermediary between researchers and oil companies. .

He explained that this technology is not only low-cost but also incur the basic expenses necessary, as 5% of hydrogen production is enough to rotate the turbines of oxygen production plants, he added, "The land is reactive and we do not need supplementary high-cost operations, which are always accompanied by the extraction of shale fuel." Such as distillation and purification.

"We expect Alberta wells to provide Canada with the necessary electricity for 330 years (Canada consumes 2.5% of the world's electricity and the same amount in Germany and more than France and the United Kingdom). Our main objective is to increase production in Canada's fields, but we believe that this technology will attract the attention of other countries because of the ferocity Current environmental problems caused by fossil fuels. "

The energy produced by hydrogen gas is as enormous as shale fuel, but differs from the problem of pollution. Hydrogen does not emit greenhouse gases (such as methane and carbon dioxide) that caused global warming.

Commenting on the research, Brian Horsfeld, a professor at the German Research Center for Earth Sciences, said: "This is an innovative and very exciting research, and it is necessary to conduct extensive and extensive site testing to ensure the effectiveness of this technology on an industrial scale."