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ExxonMobil’s hydrogen burner a breakthrough

January 27, 2025

ExxonMobil’s Baytown Olefins Plant (BOP) has  been conducting commercial testing since December of what it calls next-generation burners that can operate on up to 100% hydrogen fuel, the company stated in a news release.

“We’ve reached another milestone in our mission to help reduce emissions from key industries,” the release said.

“Our next-generation burner can help decarbonize a key industry,” the release said. “A total of 44 pyrolysis burners we designed were installed in December in one of the plant’s steam cracking furnaces and the demonstrated a 90% reduction in direct CO2 emissions.”

Pyrolysis is the heating of an organic material, such as natural gas, in the absence of oxygen at high temperatures. The next-generation burners were the result of four years of work by ExxonMobil scientists and engineers.

Dan Holton, ExxonMobil’s senior vice president of Low Carbon Solutions, said the company is proud to be the first company in the world to successfully demonstrate this technology at industrial scale.

“We’re leading the way on hydrogen because with global demand for plastics continuing to grow, finding ways to reduce emissions from olefins production is crucial,” he said.

Sara Kallish, technical manager at BOP, is thrilled to be at ground zero for the project.

“We are very proud to have passed this exciting milestone of being the first in industry to run high-hydrogen in our steam cracking furnaces, right here in our Baytown Olefins Plant,"  she said. "We are excited to be in the forefront of this new technology that will enable emissions reductions in our ExxonMobil facilities.

"This feat is a testament to the hard work, dedication and innovation of many folks across both our technology and manufacturing organizations."

Industrial burners are very similar to burners on a home’s gas stove, except that they are much larger and run much hotter,” Hector Ayala, senior principal for heat transfer at ExxonMobil, said in a video on the company website.

Any list of “hard-to-decarbonize sectors typically includes the chemical industry. That’s because producing olefins — the building blocks for plastics and other materials — requires a large amount of heat.Temperatures inside the furnaces that “crack” hydrocarbon molecules into olefins exceed 2,000 degrees.

But being able to run the furnaces on hydrogen, a fuel that produces no CO2 when burned, would be a game changer, the release stated.

“Industrial burners do use a lot of energy,” Ayala said. “If you can switch fuel to a low carbon hydrogen, you can cut emissions significantly.

“Hydrogen is abundant in our planet. When hydrogen is used as a fuel, its only emission is water vapor and that makes it a very attractive fuel to consider for the energy transition,” Ayala said.

The testing in Baytown has produced ethylene and other olefins identical to those produced via traditional methods, the release said.

Plans call for ExxonMobil to install the 100% hydrogen-capable burners in additional steam cracking furnaces at BOP over the next few years.

“We’re getting ‘hydrogen ready’ because we’re planning to build a plant at Baytown that would produce up to 1 billion cubic feet per day of hydrogen. We hope our successful commercial test can encourage other manufacturers to make a similar switch,” the release said.

“By using hydrogen to reduce emissions from olefins production, we can help reduce the carbon footprint of everything from food packaging to car parts to medical equipment.”

By Dave Rogers, Baytown Sun
https://baytownsun.com/local/exxonmobil-s-hydrogen-burner-a-breakthrough/article_88292cf8-dd19-11ef-b94b-9b4e86b3724f.html