Dastur to work on FEED study for blue hydrogen project

Dastur International, Inc., affiliate company Dastur Energy Inc., and Air Liquide have been awarded the US DOE funded FEED study for designing and engineering an industrial-scale carbon capture plant at Air Liquide’s Steam Methane Reformer (SMR) on the US Gulf Coast.

The project aims to capture 0.9 mtpa of CO2 with a net carbon capture efficiency of at least 95%, enabling the production of clean or blue hydrogen. The Funding Opportunity is entitled “fossil energy-based production, storage, transport and utilization of hydrogen approaching net zero”.

The FEED will be completed in 18 months, and the value of the award is approximately US$ 7.5 million.

As the Prime Recipient of the award, Dastur will partner with sub-recipients, technology provider Air Liquide E&C Solutions USA and host site Air Liquide Large Industries to provide a techno-economically efficient and cost-effective solution for the industrial scale decarbonization of hydrogen production.

The project will exploit the US Gulf Coast’s natural advantages in terms of natural gas availability, geological formations for the permanent storage of CO2, availability of CO2 transportation infrastructure, and CO2 demand from downstream customers. The project can be a stepping stone for the US DoE’s 1-1-1 Hydrogen Energy Earthshot program, which seeks to reduce the cost of clean hydrogen by 80% to $1 per 1 Kilogram in 1 decade.

The project intends to use Air Liquide’s state-of-the-art cryogenic technology, which runs on grid electricity and will have lower secondary emissions than conventional amine-based carbon capture technology. With the increasing penetration of renewables in the grid and decreasing grid emission intensity, the project will progressively reduce lifecycle CO2 emissions over time.

Along with its partners, Dastur will draw upon its own intellectual property & know-how in gas conditioning, system design & engineering, carbon capture technology & storage and sequestration expertise to engineer a flexible, scalable and cost-effective industrial-scale carbon capture & management solution.

Atanu Mukherjee, President and Chief Executive Officer of Dastur, said, “Decarbonization of the hard-to-abate industrial world and generation of clean energy carriers like hydrogen is key to a net-zero future, and this project will be an important landmark in establishing the US’s leadership in this area.”