The industrial world faces an urgent challenge, reducing its carbon footprint without compromising productivity or profit. As pressure mounts to decarbonise sectors such as steel, cement, and chemicals, industries are increasingly turning to hydrogen as a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels. However, producing hydrogen in a way that is both environmentally friendly and economically viable remains a significant challenge.
Traditional hydrogen production methods, such as electrolysis, steam methane reforming (SMR), and autothermal reforming (ATR), each face their own set of challenges. Electrolysis, while a promising option for producing green hydrogen, requires large amounts of renewable electricity, making it expensive and potentially inefficient for large-scale industrial use. In contrast, SMR and ATR are more cost-effective but generate significant CO2 emissions. Although both processes can integrate carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies, their ability to effectively capture and store CO2 has yet to be widely trialled at scale.
To address this, recent UK Government-funded projects involving SMR and ATR aim to capture a proportion of the CO2 emissions, storing them in depleted offshore oil and gas fields. However, it remains to be seen how much total emissions can be reduced by this technology. As global decarbonisation efforts intensify, both methods are facing increasing scrutiny over their long-term viability in meeting carbon reduction targets.
Volta Hydrogen are introducing a transformative approach to produce hydrogen for distributed industry, methane pyrolysis. This innovative technique splits methane into hydrogen and solid carbon without relying on excessive electricity or water and without CO2 emissions. Volta Hydrogen’s solution allows industries to produce hydrogen directly on-site, bypassing the need for large scale investments by harnessing the existing infrastructure. This shift to distributed hydrogen production offers the potential to significantly reduce cost while providing a cleaner, more efficient pathway to industrial decarbonisation.
In this article, we explore why methane pyrolysis could be the key to unlocking a low-carbon future for industries across the UK.
Here’s Volta’s CEO, Robert Bell, to delve deeper into the innovations behind the company’s technology, the role of solid Carbon by-products, and the potential of disrupted hydrogen production.
Questions from Foresight Media.
Volta Hydrogen is developing methane pyrolysis technology which produces hydrogen by decomposing natural gas or bio-methane to produce hydrogen gas and solid carbon. Why have you chosen the methane pyrolysis and how is it differentiated from other hydrogen production methods like electrolysis or steam methane reforming?
Robert Bell;
“Methane pyrolysis has fundamental process and deployment advantages as a distributed source of low carbon hydrogen. It requires a fraction of the electrical energy of electrolysis, there is no water requirement, and the solid carbon byproduct is stable, easy to transport, and has real value as a material.
By developing a technology that allows distributed hydrogen production on or near the user site, this minimises disruption to existing energy networks or the need for new infrastructure. The gas network currently provides almost all the energy for industrial heat and being able to locally transform this to a low carbon fuel is a key step in decarbonising industry.”
Can you elaborate on the key innovations behind Volta Hydrogen’s reactor technology, and the advantages these may bring?
Robert Bell;
‘Volta Hydrogen’s reactor technology is centred on thermal methane pyrolysis, with a focus on increasing the accessibility and reducing the costs of distributed hydrogen production. A key innovation lies in its high-efficiency resistive heating approach, which represents a significant departure from plasma or catalytic methods.
This breakthrough improves energy efficiency and simplifies reactor operation, resulting in excellent conversion rates and reduced capital costs. By incorporating energy recovery systems and leveraging standard engineering practices, the technology achieves low-carbon hydrogen production with less than 20g of CO₂e/MJ while maintaining a capital cost advantage.
The high electrical efficiency of the reactor minimises demand on the electricity grid, reducing overall energy costs and enables hydrogen production to be aligned with real-time demand, rather than being constrained by electricity supply availability.
Additionally, this approach allows the reactor to be integrated with existing grid connections, making hydrogen a viable decarbonisation solution for a wider range of industries across various locations.”
How does Volta Hydrogen plan to scale its technology to meet the growing demand for low-carbon hydrogen, especially in industries with heavy energy usage?
Robert Bell;
“Volta Hydrogen is developing a modular approach to the onsite production of hydrogen and will deliver modular systems producing over 240 kg of hydrogen per hour. We are now in the process of scaling the reactor design, refining materials selection and control methods that will allow series production of modules that can be delivered to site as an integrated package of multiple modules.
There are over 100 suitable sites ready for conversion in the UK alone, so the need to minimise non-recurring engineering costs by standardising designs and modularising plant is a key stage in the implementation of the technology.”
What are the biggest challenges in transitioning industrial users from natural gas to hydrogen, and how does Volta Hydrogen address these hurdles?
Robert Bell;
“The transition from natural gas to hydrogen poses several challenges for industrial users, including concerns over the reliability of hydrogen supply, infrastructure requirements, and the need for extensive on-site hydrogen storage. Additionally, compatibility with existing equipment is a key consideration, though ongoing demonstration projects have shown promising results in this area.
Volta Hydrogen addresses these challenges by locating its reactors directly at the user’s site while maintaining grid connections. This ensures an uninterrupted and reliable hydrogen supply without dependence on extensive external infrastructure. By producing hydrogen on-demand to match the user’s requirements, Volta Hydrogen’s approach eliminates the need for large-scale on-site hydrogen storage, enabling seamless integration with existing industrial processes. This flexibility and reliability make the transition to hydrogen both practical and cost-effective for industrial users.”
Can you share more details on the markets for the solid carbon produced through your process, and how it contributes to the overall sustainability of Volta Hydrogen?
Robert Bell;
“The high purity carbon produced is a stable and valuable material with applications in energy storage or materials processing, but the end use is a key consideration in achieving a reduction in CO2 emissions. The definitions of low carbon hydrogen vary between jurisdictions, in the UK the low carbon hydrogen standard places some limits the applications for the produced carbon to ensure this material is permanently sequestered. This is important to ensure that the produced carbon is not subsequently burnt releasing the CO2 that has been avoided.
The current source of high purity synthetic carbon is often petroleum coke produced from crude oil, which must be refined and purified to remove contaminants. As a typical Volta Hydrogen operating site may produce up to 5000 tonnes of high purity carbon per year. This provides an opportunity to displace a proportion of that material and significantly reduce the carbon footprint of these vital materials.”
With increasing focus on green hydrogen and renewable energy sources, how does Volta Hydrogen position itself in the competitive landscape, and what role do partnerships play in your strategy for growth and market expansion?
Robert Bell;
“Our technology is part of a broader portfolio of low-carbon solutions needed to achieve decarbonisation on both national and global scales.
Volta Hydrogen focuses on providing hydrogen at a lower cost of supply for distributed industrial sites, where our technology has a significant cost advantage over green hydrogen both in capital and energy costs, and doesn’t require dedicated new infrastructure.
Many industrial users face limitations in low-carbon electricity availability or grid capacity, preventing them from either converting to fully electrified processes or producing green hydrogen at the required scale. For such sites, our technology offers a viable alternative using existing energy infrastructure and does not require the complexity of post-combustion carbon capture and storage to address the challenge of reducing carbon dioxide emissions from natural gas combustion.
By integrating hydrogen production directly into existing industrial operations, we enhance efficiency and energy utilisation, reducing overall energy demands for end users. As such, partnerships are central to our strategy for growth and market expansion. Collaborating closely with industrial users allows us to optimise integration with their operations, minimising disruption while maximising decarbonisation outcomes. Through these partnerships, we aim to deliver tailored solutions that align with the specific needs of each site, ensuring a smooth and effective transition to low-carbon hydrogen.”
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As industries worldwide race to meet their carbon reduction targets, Volta Hydrogen is pushing the envelope with its novel approach to on-site hydrogen production. Unlike traditional methods that rely on large infrastructure or grid electricity, Volta Hydrogen’s system uses existing networks, in theory making it scalable for heavy industries.
Intriguingly, the solid carbon byproduct of this process presents an opportunity for industries to repurpose a material that might otherwise go to waste. Used in applications ranging from energy storage to materials processing, this byproduct offers an alternative to carbon intensive petroleum coke. As global demand for hydrogen grows, the ability to produce it reliably and affordable at local sites could be a crucial factor for industrial sectors.
Despite the huge potential, scaling this technology remains a challenge. Volta Hydrogen believes that their modular reactor design and partnership lead strategy will be the key.
Robert Bell and Volta Hydrogen are looking to support the transition to a low carbon future one site at a time, within the ever-evolving arena of hydrogen production.
