Hydrogen production because it is more efficient than separate hydrogen, steam and power plants. Air Products recently built an integrated steam reforming / co-generation plant in Port Arthur, Texas. Hydrogen production from natural gas or other hydrocarbons is achieved by partial oxidation. A fuel-air or fuel-oxygen mixture is partially combusted resulting in a hydrogen rich syngas. Hydrogen and carbon monoxide are obtained via the water-gas shift reaction. Carbon dioxide can be co-fed to lower the hydrogen to carbon monoxide ratio. The partial oxidation reaction occurs when a substoichiometric fuel-air mixture or fuel-oxygen is partially combusted in a reformer or partial oxidation reactor.
Hydrogen storage technology. As of 2010, the BMW Group has started a thorough component and system level validation of cryo-compressed vehicle storage on its way to a commercial product. Hydrogen carriers based on nanostructured carbon (such as carbon buckyballs and nanotubes) have been proposed. However, since Hydrogen usually amounts up to ~3.0-7.0 wt% at 77K which is far from the value set by US department of Energy (6 wt% at nearly ambient conditions), it makes carbon materials poor candidates for hydrogen storage. To realize carbon materials as effective hydrogen storage technologies, the Clean Energy Research Center has doped carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with