Hazer Group Ltd (ASX:HZR) has taken a significant step towards de-risking the scale-up of its Hazer Process technology.
The Hazer Process enables the effective conversion of natural gas and similar feedstocks, into hydrogen and high-quality graphite, using iron ore as a process catalyst.
The company has now successfully demonstrated on-line injection of iron ore catalyst into the pre-pilot plant.
Geoff Pocock, managing director, commented: “This is a key achievement for the company, and we are extremely excited by this demonstration of catalyst addition while maintaining underlying reaction conditions.
“This milestone positions us for implementing further improvements in our next generation reactor design, and significantly de-risks the commercial implementation of the Hazer Process. “
Pre-pilot plant commissioned in July 2017
Hazer commissioned its pre-pilot plant located in St Marys in Western Sydney during July 2017.
READ: Hazer Group Ltd advancing hydrogen, graphite production process
Hazer’s operations since commissioning the pre-pilot plant have also demonstrated preliminary success in ejection of graphite from the reactor, thus partially demonstrating initial fully continuous operation.
The pre-pilot plant has also generated valuable information on process operations and has shown significant improvements across a range of parameters including runtime, conversion rates, reaction selectivity and fluidisation behaviour.
What the results mean
This represents the first time that fresh catalyst has been introduced to the reactor while maintaining temperature and pressure conditions for production of hydrogen and graphite.
Significantly, it is a key process condition necessary for continuous operation of the Hazer process.
These positive results enable Hazer to implement significant design improvements in the development of a next-generation reactor system.
Increasing production and purity
Hazer is now undertaking the design and implementation of a second-generation reactor system.
This second-generation Pre-Pilot Plant is anticipated to enable superior performance including increased graphite and hydrogen production increased raw graphite purity.
These improvements and the commissioning of the second-generation reactor are expected to be completed in the middle of 2018.