Rising climate change ambitions require large-scale clean hydrogen production in the near term. “Blue” hydrogen from conventional steam methane reforming (SMR) with pre-combustion CO₂ capture can fulfil this role. This study therefore presents techno-economic assessments of a range of SMR process configurations to minimize hydrogen production costs. Results showed that pre-combustion capture can avoid up to 80% of CO₂ emissions cheaply at 35 €/ton, but the final 20% of CO₂ capture is much more expensive at a marginal CO₂ avoidance cost around 150 €/ton. Thus, post-combustion CO₂ capture should be a better solution for avoiding the final 20% of CO₂. Furthermore, an advanced heat integration scheme that recovers most of the steam condensation enthalpy before the CO₂ capture unit can reduce hydrogen production costs by about 6%. Two hybrid hydrogen production options were also assessed. First, a “blue-green” hydrogen plant that uses clean electricity to heat the reformer achieved similar hydrogen production costs to the pure blue configuration. Second, a “blue-turquoise” configuration that replaces the pre-reformer with molten salt pyrolysis for converting higher hydrocarbons to a pure carbon product can significantly reduce costs if carbon has a similar value to hydrogen. In conclusion, conventional pre-combustion CO₂ capture from SMR is confirmed as a good solution for kickstarting the hydrogen economy, and it can be tailored to various market conditions with respect to CO₂, electricity, and pure carbon prices.

应对气候变化的雄心壮志要求在短期内大规模生产清洁氢气。来自传统蒸汽甲烷重整 (SMR) 和燃烧前 CO ₂捕获的“蓝色”氢可以发挥这一作用。因此，本研究对一系列 SMR 工艺配置进行了技术经济评估，以最大限度地降低制氢成本。结果表明，燃烧前捕获可以以 35 欧元/吨的低廉成本避免高达 80% 的 CO _{2排放，但最后 20% 的 CO 2}捕获要贵得多，边际 CO ₂避免成本约为 150 欧元/吨。因此，燃烧后 CO ₂捕获应该是避免最后 20% CO _{2的更好解决方案}. _{此外，在 CO 2}捕集单元之前回收大部分蒸汽冷凝热的先进热集成方案可以将制氢成本降低约 6%。还评估了两种混合制氢方案。首先，使用清洁电力加热重整器的“蓝绿”制氢厂实现了与纯蓝色配置相似的制氢成本。其次，如果碳具有与氢相似的价值，用熔盐热解代替预重整器将高级碳氢化合物转化为纯碳产品的“蓝绿松石”配置可以显着降低成本。综上所述，常规预燃 CO ₂从 SMR 捕获被证实是启动氢经济的良好解决方案，并且可以针对 CO ₂、电力和纯碳价格等各种市场条件进行定制。