4.3 Applications in the Industry Sector

Before crude oil can be used as fuel, it must be treated. In the course of refining, the crude oil is further processed into different fuel products, such as diesel, petrol, kerosene or heating oil. Already today, hydrogen is used in various steps of this crude oil refining. The most important processes are hydrocracking and desulphurisation. The hydrocracking process describes the conversion of long-chain hydrocarbons (heavy oils) into short-chain hydrocarbons (light oils). For this purpose, the crude oil is treated with a hydrogen-containing gas. In desulphurisation, hydrogen is added to a fuel. Heating the mixture causes a reaction between the hydrogen and the sulphur contained in the feedstock. The resulting hydrogen sulphide can then be removed. 

 

Since hydrogen is a by-product of other refinery processes in considerable quantities, refineries only produce part of the hydrogen required for hydrocracking and desulphurisation in a targeted manner. In the recent past, global hydrogen consumption by oil refineries has steadily increased. The reasons for this were, on the one hand, the still increasing consumption of fossil fuels and, on the other hand, stricter requirements on the sulphur content of fuels.

Due to the ongoing electrification of road traffic - which means that electric vehicles are replacing classic cars with combustion engines - the demand for fossil fuels is expected to decline in the future. However, this does not automatically imply that refineries as major consumers of hydrogen will disappear in the future. In the future, refineries may produce the e-fuels mentioned in the first section of this chapter, which require large quantities of green hydrogen. Thus, as a first step, refineries could substitute the grey hydrogen they currently use with green hydrogen and thereby reduce their CO2 emissions. In a second step, they could then gradually shift their production processes to green hydrogen-based e-fuels.