Published September 2024
As green hydrogen and ammonia production gains steam in combatting climate change, focus is increasing on the availability and treatment of water required to produce hydrogen. Many planned hydrogen production facilities experience problems in identifying a reliable source of water, and some planned projects had to be canceled because of the nonavailability of water.
This review addresses challenges faced by the industry with respect to the availability of water sources, discusses the required treatment to meet water quality for hydrogen production, defines a water treatment process with seawater as source water, and provides capital and operating cost estimates. This is an important cost input as it impacts the net cost of the hydrogen production process. The water treatment plant capacity is based on the estimated water requirement for a 1-GW electrolyzer.
Apart from the technical and economic analysis, we have also included a material balance table, a sized equipment list, and process flow diagrams for the process evaluated.
The economic evaluation presented is Process Economics Program (PEP)’s independent interpretation of the commercial process based on information presented in the open literature, such as patents, technical articles, discussions with some equipment suppliers, etc. It may not reflect in whole or in part an actual plant configuration. We do believe that these sources are sufficient to represent the process and process economics within the range of accuracy necessary for the economic evaluation of the conceptual process design.
Acknowledgment
The authors wish to acknowledge the assistance provided by Milton Crossen of Xylem, Inc., in preparation for this review.