Australian company teaming up with specialists to prove hydrogen-rich raw gas stream can be processed into high-purity H2

A week after announcing that it had detected “significant concentrations” of natural hydrogen at its first exploration well, Australian company Gold Hydrogen has unveiled plans to fast-track what would be the world’s first natural H₂ pilot project.

Gold Hydrogen — which is hoping to be the first business in the world to extract and sell naturally occurring hydrogen — says it has signed two separate memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with Malaysian engineer Wasco Energy and Spanish company H2Site “to enable the fast-tracking of a proof-of-concept hydrogen pilot plant”.

The “concept”, Gold Hydrogen explains in a statement to the ASX exchange, is “that if natural hydrogen can be produced from the subsurface as part of a raw gas stream, then that raw gas can be processed at surface to yield a high purity hydrogen gas which can be used as an energy source”.

H2Site manufactures “integrated membrane reactor units” with no moving parts that separate and purify hydrogen from a blended gas stream — and was initially designed to extract or “unblend” H₂ that had been injected into fossil-gas networks.

The agreements are subject to the results of Gold Hydrogen’s maiden drilling campaign, which has so far resulted in the detection of 73.3% hydrogen in gases emerging from its first exploration well, Ramsay 1, on the Yorke peninsula in South Australia.

A second well about 500 metres away, Ramsay 2, is to be drilled in the coming weeks to help determine the volumes of H₂ present under the ground.

“The MoUs outline how the company will work with Wasco Energy and H2Site to review the suitability of current hydrogen purification systems to facilitate a saleable hydrogen product to be compressed on site,” said Gold Hydrogen.

“As a proof-of-concept, the compressed hydrogen could then be sold into the local market or used for power generation (eg, via a hydrogen fuel cell). This would represent an important step in the process of enabling the full potential of the Ramsay area to be evaluated from a commercial perspective, and would also create the first natural hydrogen pilot plant in Australia.”

KEY NATURAL HYDROGEN PRODUCTION PROCESSES, ENVIRONMENTS AND LOCATIONS

Source:HydrogenInsight