The University of North Dakota will use a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to use a process developed by a Pittsburgh, Pa., company that derives fuels, chemicals and advanced carbon materials from natural gas and coal.
University of North Dakota’s College of Engineering and Mines will make use of Pittsburgh-based H Quest Vanguard’s microwave plasma pyrolysis process, according to a Dickinson Press article. The research will investigate separating carbon and hydrogen from flared natural gas at the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota.
“Pyrolysis uses heat and electricity to break down natural gas into carbon and hydrogen,” Dan Laudal, director of the University of North Dakota’s Institute for Energy Studies said, according to the Dickinson Press. “The carbon isolated during pyrolysis is a solid, so you’re not releasing any CO2 into the atmosphere. Rather, the isolated carbon, called ‘carbon black’ can be sold for use in a variety of industrial applications. Hydrogen is also of great interest to the energy industry in North Dakota, as a potential source of energy with a lower carbon footprint.”
Research will be conducted at H Quest’s laboratories, where conditions like the Bakken formation will be simulated, the Dickinson Press said. Data will be sent to the University of North Dakota for analysis.
Environmental and economic reasons make “capturing flared natural gas from North Dakota’s oil wells” a priority, George Skopstov, president and CEO of H Quest, said, according to the Dickinson Press.
“North Dakota has a lot of natural gas that just burns, because it doesn’t have a path to market,” Skopstov said, according to the Dickinson Press. “H Quest has technology that can take that gas and utilize it on the spot, instead of releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which along with polluting wastes its potential energy uses.”
Hydrogen has energy and industrial potential, Skopstov said, according to the article.
“There has been a lot of interest recently in utilizing pyrolysis to generate hydrogen,” Skopstov said in the Dickinson Press article. “Hydrogen is one of the main components in making fertilizer, and it can also be used in the production of steel without emitting CO2.”
Skopstov said the U.S. Department of Energy wants to reduce flaring in the Bakken area and as such is “very interested in this research,” the Dickinson Press reported.
“Hopefully, we will be able to take the results of this study to the oil companies and say ‘hey, this works, let’s deploy it.’” Skopstov said, according to the Dickinson Press.
