HIPURE PSA for Hydrogen Recovery and Purification

Hydrogen Recovery and Purification to Drive Your Profitability

Hydrogen is set to play a vital role on the journey to net zero. Since the 1970s, we’ve been leading PSA technology, evolving HIPURE^® systems to meet hydrogen recovery and purification needs across industry.

Linde’s hydrogen production facility in Sweeny, Texas, showcasing large-scale industrial infrastructure supporting the global shift to cleaner energy solutions.

To support the global shift toward cleaner energy, we have developed an advanced, efficient pressure swing adsorption (PSA) technology for the recovery of hydrogen (H₂) from different hydrogen-rich gas streams, including synthesis gas from reforming, gasification and partial oxidation. Our HIPURE PSA for hydrogen recovery and purification solution is also suited to off-gases from refineries, petrochemical processes HyCO plants downstream of carbon monoxide (CO) coldboxes, ammonia (NH₃) cracking and underground cavern.

As a world leader in adsorption technology, we have already designed and delivered over 1,000 PSA plants - including the largest units globally and those with the highest operational availability. HIPURE PSA units have evolved significantly over the decades, offering high recovery rates, hydrogen purities up to 99.9999 vol.%, and feed gas capacities extending all the way more than 400,000 Nm³/h as single-train configurations.

Efficient Hydrogen Recovery: How Does It Work?

HIPURE PSA plants include adsorber vessels filled with adsorbent materials, tail gas drums, valve skids, piping, instrumentation and a control system. Depending on your requirements, we can provide integrated HIPURE PSA solutions that include feed gas compressors or tail-gas compressor systems.

Our technology purifies hydrogen by separating gas mixtures under pressure, using porous materials that selectively adsorb impurities. At high pressure, adsorption forces capture these contaminants, with desorption occurs at low pressure, allowing high purity hydrogen to pass efficiently through the adsorber beds. The purification efficiency depends on the feed gas composition, the type of adsorbent material, pressure levels, temperature, and hydrogen product purity requirements. Due to its volatility and low polarity, hydrogen is minimally adsorbed, enabling effective recovery of high-purity hydrogen. A detailed overview of the HIPURE PSA process sequence and the operational details can be seen in the following video.

Recovery and Purification Paths for Hydrogen

Clean Hydrogen from Syngas

Our HIPURE PSA solution supports a wide range of hydrogen recovery applications using syngas from conventional as well as low-carbon production pathways. The flow chart below illustrates the typical production of syngas from hydrocarbon or alternative feedstocks, which are processed by means of steam methane reforming (SMR), autothermal reforming (ATR), gasification, partial oxidation (POX) or methane pyrolysis. HIPURE PSA efficiently purifies hydrogen from these syngas streams over a wide range of concentrations by selectively removing impurities for a high-purity result.

You can rely on our HIPURE PSA specialists to recommend the configuration that strikes the best balance between your performance needs, feedstock availability and investment cost.

Flowchart illustrating how hydrogen (H₂) can be produced from various feedstocks, showing syngas generation, H₂ recovery via our HIPURE® PSA and an optional carbon capture step.

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Hydrogen Recovery from Off-gases and Process Gases

Refinery operations generate off-gas streams that often contain significant amounts of hydrogen mixed with hydrocarbons and other components. As illustrated below, hydrogen can be recovered from off-gases produced by a variety of industrial processes, including refineries, ethylene production plants, coke ovens, and direct reduced iron (DRI) furnaces. These streams often contain hydrogen as a by-product. HIPURE PSA enables efficient extraction and purification of this hydrogen - even from feed gases with hydrogen concentrations as low as 30%, thereby reducing waste and improving overall process efficiency.

Flow diagram showing hydrogen (H2) recovery using HIPURE® PSA. Industrial sources emit H₂-rich off-gases, which are processed to recover purified H2.

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Chlor-alkali electrolysis generates hydrogen as a by-product. Rather than venting or underutilizing this resource, HIPURE PSA technology captures and purifies the hydrogen into a high-value product stream suitable for industrial use, energy applications, or further processing.

Flow diagram showing ammonia (NH₃) cracking, where NH₃ is converted into cracking gas and purified by HIPURE® PSA to recover hydrogen (H₂).

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Ammonia synthesis loops require continuous purging to prevent the build-up of inert gases such as methane and argon. While necessary for stable operation, these purge streams contain valuable hydrogen that would otherwise be lost. HIPURE PSA technology efficiently recovers hydrogen from ammonia purge gas, producing a high-purity hydrogen stream that can be recycled back to the process. By recovering hydrogen from purge gas, operators can reduce feedstock consumption, increase overall plant efficiency, and lower production costs.

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Since we support all enabling technologies, we can tailor our HIPURE PSA hydrogen recovery and puriﬁcation solutions to your speciﬁc needs, considering individual process conditions and the plant integration. Our expertise in gas separation and puriﬁcation allows us to maximize hydrogen yield while minimizing energy consumption.

Hybrid Solution for High-purity Hydrogen

Our hybrid solution combines HIPURE PSA with our HISELECT membranes to enhance overall process efficiency and support decarbonization goals. While HIPURE PSA alone can achieve hydrogen purity rates of 99.9999 vol.%, its integration with membranes provides additional flexibility and optimization gains for specific process configurations. By integrating both technologies into a single optimized process, we enable superior recovery rates, reduced energy consumption, and reliable operations across a wide range of feed gas compositions.

Flow diagram showing hydrogen (H₂) recovery from hydrogen-rich off-gases produced by a steam cracker; the recovered gas is processed using our hybrid solution combining HIPURE® PSA with HISELECT® membranes to create high-purity hydrogen.

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Recovery and Purification of Pipelined Hydrogen

In places where pipeline infrastructure is available, gaseous hydrogen is the most efficient way to unlock the CO₂ abatement potential of hydrogen. Existing natural gas pipelines can either be repurposed to carry combustion-grade hydrogen (98 vol.%) or higher, since the pipeline purities discussed range from 98 vol.% to 99.5 vol.% used to co-transport hydrogen and natural gas, whereby the hydrogen must be deblended at the point of use with this option before extraction in times where production does not meet demand, H₂ can be stored temporarily in underground caverns - either newly built or former natural gas caverns that have been converted - or in pore storage formations, such as depleted natural gas fields. When removed from storage, hydrogen purification is essential to meet the required quality for end-use applications.

Read on to see how we support these deblending, recovery and purification process steps.

Upgrading of Hydrogen After Pipeline Transport / Underground Storage

The flow chart below shows how HIPURE PSA can be used to upgrade 98 vol.% - 99.5 vol.% hydrogen following transport in dedicated hydrogen pipelines. HIPURE PSA technology can achieve all purity levels demanded by the energy, mobility and industrial sectors.

Another recovery pathway involves purifying hydrogen that was stored in new developed or repurposed storage locations (e.g. former natural gas storage). In this case, HIPURE PSA or HIPURE temperature swing adsorption (TSA) is used to upgrade the stored hydrogen to the high purity grade specified by the customer in question.

Image shows hydrogen purification after transport or after underground storage using HIPURE® PSA or HIPURE® TSA to achieve the high purity levels demanded by industrial applications, hydrogen refueling stations, branched pure H2 pipelines and bulk H2 hubs.

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Deblending of Hydrogen after Transport in Natural Gas Pipelines

The hybrid solution illustrated in the flow chart below integrates HISELECT membranes with HIPURE PSA technology to efficiently recover hydrogen from pipelines where natural gas has been blended with hydrogen. HISELECT membranes extract hydrogen from the gas mixture, achieving up to 90 vol.% purity. The extracted hydrogen is then upgraded to fuel cell grade (99.97%) or higher grades using HIPURE PSA. The remaining natural gas with a low hydrogen concentration is returned to the pipeline. This flexible technology supports hydrogen purifications from below 10% to over 90%, making this infrastructure reuse solution ideal for a wide range of blending scenarios.

Supply of high-purity hydrogen by deblending it from pipelines where hydrogen has been blended with natural gas.

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Highlights at a Glance

Building on our expertise in adsorption technology, HIPURE PSA plants will bring you the following benefits:

Hydrogen purity levels up to 99.9999 vol.%: HIPURE PSA systems are fine-tuned to align with your specific purification task to enable the highly selective removal of substances like methane (CH₄), nitrogen (N₂), and heavy hydrocarbons, while balancing plant performance with investment costs.

High-performance adsorbent materials: Our adsorbent materials and the composition are tailored to your specific purification task for efficient and, cost-effective operation of your HIPURE PSA.

Reliability and extremely high availability: HIPURE PSA plants are built for near-100% on-stream availability, using high-quality components to ensure reliable, low-maintenance performance. Each unit includes an automatic switch-back system and redundant controls to maintain continuous operation, even in the event of a component failure.

Scalability: Operates efficiently in plants of any scale, also optimized to fully meet today's and tomorrow's stringent safety, cost efficiency and environmental protection requirements.

Modular design and prefabricated equipment: HIPURE PSA plants are delivered as fully tested, prefabricated modules to minimize on-site work and reduce costs.

Selected Flagship Projects

PSA Unit for H₂ Recovery in Leuna

Location:
Leuna, Germany

Product capacity:
48,000 Nm³/h of H₂

Focus:
PSA unit for hydrogen recovery from steam methane reformer (SMR) off-gas and a subsequent PSA unit for CO₂ recovery from the SMR-PSA tail gas