University of Pittsburgh, Peoples Natural Gas, and H Quest Partner on Demonstration Project to Produce Turquoise Hydrogen
Peoples Natural Gas has partnered with energy technology start-up company H Quest and the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering to develop an innovative demonstration project in Western Pennsylvania to create zero-emission hydrogen energy from natural gas.
“Our mission to provide safe, reliable, and affordable natural gas is based on a commitment to make lives better,” said Peoples President Michael Huwar. “That commitment means pursuing innovations that leverage our local abundance of natural gas while placing a focus on decarbonization."
Peoples has installed one of H Quest’s proprietary microwave pyrolysis units at its training center in McKeesport to transform natural gas into pure hydrogen without CO2 emissions, creating what is often referred to as turquoise hydrogen.
The partners consider turquoise hydrogen a potential solution for multiple challenges facing the large-scale adoption of hydrogen. By extracting the carbon from natural gas as a solid material, the greenhouse gas emissions associated with conventional hydrogen production can be avoided. Solid carbon products, such as carbon black and graphene, can then be sold to offset the cost of hydrogen fuel.
Roughly the size of a shipping container, technology within the unit heats the natural gas as it flows through the system in an oxygen-free setting. This instantaneously cracks the gas into two distinct byproducts: clean hydrogen and carbon black - an industrial product used as a crucial component in batteries, paints, pigments, rubber products, and tires, among other things.
Next, Peoples blends the hydrogen with natural gas at various ratios to assess impacts on physical pipeline operations and various home appliances. The ongoing blending and testing at the Peoples Training Center in McKeesport occurs within a closed-loop system; H2 is not inserted into distribution lines serving customers at this point.
H Quest’s distributed modular package will not only reduce the need for and costs of transportation and infrastructure upgrades required to deliver the fuel to the customer but, in some cases, also eliminate them altogether.
The University of Pittsburgh’s material scientists will evaluate the influence of hydrogen blends on the integrity of Peoples’ commonly used pipeline material in a controlled environment. The team will test H2–natural gas blends ranging from 5-20% hydrogen to study interactions with different pipeline materials to provide low-cost energy, which is as safe and reliable as natural gas but with reduced emissions.
