North Carolina-based low-carbon technology company 8 Rivers Capital is pushing ahead with the first commercial deployment of its “game-changing” 8RH2 methane-based hydrogen production process as part of a clean ammonia project at Port Arthur in Texas.

The Cormorant Clean Energy project will convert hydrogen produced by 8RH2 into 880,000t/yr of low-carbon ammonia, with a CO₂ capture rate of above 99%.

The project’s strategic location in the US Gulf Coast will enable it to use existing infrastructure and the local workforce. The project is expected to mobilise more than $1b of investment in the region and to create more than 1,000 new construction jobs from 2024 to 2027, according to 8 Rivers.

880,000t/yr – Ammonia production

“The Cormorant Clean Energy Project is the ideal location to deploy our 8RH2 platform commercially, at scale for the first time,” said Steve Milward, COO at 8 Rivers. “Clean fuels like hydrogen and ammonia are paramount to the energy transition, and the Gulf Coast region’s rich history of industrial manufacturing and transportation makes it the perfect environment to demonstrate the game-changing potential of this technology.”

The 8RH2 process uses natural gas and pure oxygen, utilising the CO₂ produced in the combustion process as a heat transfer medium in a proprietary reformer before sequestering the CO₂. The process eliminates the need for amine or cryogenic-based CO₂ separation processes, lowering costs to levels “unrivalled” in the market, according to 8 Rivers.

The process can achieve a hydrogen production cost estimated at less than $1/kg, based on a facility on the US Gulf Coast, assuming a natural gas cost of $3/m Btu and electricity priced at $40/MWh, Milward told Hydrogen Economist when the technology was first unveiled in 2023.

---

Author: Stuart Penson