IDTechEx: global blue hydrogen market to reach US$34 billion by 2033

Low-carbon hydrogen production is one of the key paths to decarbonising hard-to-abate industries such as oil refining, ammonia, steel, and long-haul transportation. CCUS infrastructure has significant government backing and is being developed by companies worldwide to capture and store emissions from various industries by locating infrastructure near industrial clusters. These forces are accelerating blue hydrogen production, which is expected to grow as global decarbonisation efforts intensify.

In the new report, 'Blue Hydrogen Production and Markets 2023-2033: Technologies, Forecasts, Players', IDTechEx forecasts that the global blue hydrogen market will grow to reach US$34 billion by 2033, driven by demand from these hard-to-abate sectors. Future blue hydrogen demand will be mainly driven by industrial clusters, encompassing many industries in one area, refining, ammonia and methanol. Other applications, such as steel production and mobility, will also begin to emerge. IDTechEx expects that the majority of blue hydrogen capacity installations will come from Europe, particularly from countries like the UK that want to decarbonise their large industrial clusters with blue hydrogen and CCUS. Significant growth will also come from North America, mainly due to an increase in the pace of development in the US driven by the Inflation Reduction Act and the development of many large-scale projects.

There are different routes to producing blue hydrogen, each with their own benefits and drawbacks.

Conventional Thermochemical Processes (SMR, ATR, POX)

Steam methane reforming (SMR) creates grey hydrogen, and is today's most developed and widely-used hydrogen production process. Coal gasification produces black/brown hydrogen and is particularly popular in China, which has some of the world's greatest reserves of coal. There is a significant business and technological development opportunity in retrofitting existing SMR and coal gasification plants through carbon capture to produce blue hydrogen. The report discusses the pre- and post-combustion capture technologies that can be used for retrofitting, an example of the latter being the industry-standard amine scrubbing process.

SMR is an energy-intensive process emitting considerable amounts of CO₂. Various technologies and materials, such as heat-integrated pre-reformers and structured catalysts, have been developed to improve this process. However, other hydrogen processes, namely partial oxidation (POX) and autothermal reforming (ATR) may be more attractive for greenfield hydrogen projects due to their higher energy efficiencies and easier integration with carbon capture. IDTechEx believes that the self-heating ATR process will be the main process option for large-scale greenfield projects due to its many advantages over SMR, while POX may be more useful in converting low-value waste products from refineries to blue hydrogen. The comparisons between these processes were considered when forecasting the blue hydrogen capacity up to 2033.

Methane Pyrolysis

Methane pyrolysis is an emerging process that creates turquoise hydrogen and solid carbon compounds, usually in the form of carbon black. While major process and technology developers such as Air Liquide and Topsoe dominate conventional processes, the methane pyrolysis field is dominated by start-ups and smaller-to-medium enterprises (SMEs), some of which are rapidly commercialising their solutions. Pyrolysis processes can be subdivided into several categories, but plasma pyrolysis stands out as the most advanced and promising technology.

Novel Thermochemical and Biomass-Based Processes

The report also identifies and describes novel thermochemical and biomass-based processes for blue hydrogen production. Although IDTechEx predicts that these processes will not account for a substantial portion of future production, their assessment is still valuable because it provides insight into the technologies that could further innovate blue hydrogen production.

Read the article online at: https://www.globalhydrogenreview.com/hydrogen/22022023/idtechex-global-blue-hydrogen-market-to-reach-us34-billion-by-2033/