A Florida-based waste-to-fuel company, Standard Hydrogen Company Inc., recently announced that it had made a technology breakthrough and that it had a patented process that could produce inexpensive hydrogen from waste. The company markets itself as an innovative, breakthrough company that developed and patented technology to economically split hydrogen sulfide into pure hydrogen and sulfur.
“We make pollution-free hydrogen and we clean the environment while doing it,” said Alan Mintzer, Standard Hydrogen CEO in a news release. “This innovation turns trash into clean burning fuel, but more importantly it also cleans up most forms of pollution around the world.”
Description of the Technology
The development of the technology is embodied in United States Patent 9290386B2 (Hydrogen sulfide conversion to hydrogen). The patent describes a method of reacting hydrogen sulfide with a catalyst at a temperature up to 700 degrees Celsius. The hydrogen sulfide is converted to sulfur and hydrogen.
In the description of its technology, the company uses plastic waste as an example. Plastic waste, comprised mainly of hydrogen and carbon atoms, is mixed with hot sulfur. The hydrogen in the plastic combines with the sulfur to generate hydrogen sulfide (H2S). The hydrogen sulfide is subsequently turned into hydrogen and sulfur. The hydrogen can be used as a fuel and the sulfur is reused in the process or sold as an industrial grade product. The entire process is exothermic (meaning it generates heat). The company claims its technology requires no precious metal catalysts and requires little to no maintenance.
The company claims its process is different than other ones such as the Claus process. The Claus process is an energy-intensive process used that destroys the hydrogen sulfide, recovers the sulfur but not the hydrogen. Standard Hydrogen claims the process is low cost and that no air emissions are generated.
Further Development
The company CEO claims that technology could easily convert organic waste streams (i.e., plastic, biomass, paper, source-separated organics, textiles) into hydrogen. It also claims it has proven the science behind the patented technology and determined it can economically produce hydrogen from hydrogen sulfide.
The company stated it is will do more research and development through mid-2020 while seeking additional joint venture partners to complete the engineering phase of the technology roll out. Standard Hydrogen is targeting the first quarter of 2021 to have a commercial reactor at a pilot plant.
