在这次独家采访中，埃克森美孚的 Mark Klewpatinond 和柘科的 Eric Pratchard 讨论了公司最近围绕开发和商业化先进的新型氢燃烧器而建立的战略联盟。
As many companies in the chemical process industries (CPI) are embarking on new sustainability journeys, hydrogen comes up again and again as a potential pathway to decarbonization. A new collaboration between ExxonMobil Corp. (Houston) and Zeeco, Inc. (Broken Arrow, Okla.) aims to make 100% hydrogen-ready burners a commercial reality. Zeeco’s new FREE JET® Gen 3 burner features a next-generation design that enables ultra-low emissions of oxides of nitrogen (NOx) while extending fuel-firing capabilities to 100% hydrogen — significantly lowering CO2 emissions compared to burning incumbent fuel sources, such as natural gas, for process heating in furnaces and boilers. In a unique partnership, Zeeco is collaborating with ExxonMobil to deploy the new burners at ExxonMobil’s Baytown Complex, a world-scale integrated petrochemicals and petroleum refining site in Texas. “In collaboration with ExxonMobil, we identified a need for a process refining burner that would allow the site to switch to a cleaner hydrogen fuel and provide or produce either similar or improved emissions results compared to what they would typically have had with a more traditional refinery fuel-gas blend,” says Eric Pratchard, director of burner technologies at Zeeco.
这一目标与 Baytown 减少高达 30% 温室气体 (GHG) 排放量的目标相一致。“这种燃烧器技术对我们的工厂实现减排目标至关重要。”埃克森美孚氢气全球业务经理 Mark Klewpatinond 说：“如果我们要从天然气等现有燃料转向氢气，我们需要一种可以安装在锅炉和熔炉中的强大燃烧器，以确保我们可以燃烧氢气，同时氮氧化物排放不超过许可限制。 在设计和部署任何类型的氢燃烧设备时，减少氮氧化物一直是首要考虑的问题。氢气领域的真正挑战并不是现在不能燃烧氢气。而是很多技术不一定能让你在燃烧氢气的同时控制氮氧化物水平。”他补充说：“这正是柘科开发新一代超低氮氧化物燃烧器的用武之地，它能使我们真正保持在允许的氮氧化物限制范围内运行。”