Russia has proposed a method for usefully processing gas that is often simply flared at oil fields. The technology is being developed by scientists from the Moscow Aviation Institute and the Joint Institute for High Temperatures of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Instead of emissions and losses, they propose to obtain two valuable products from associated petroleum gas (APG) – hydrogen and high-quality technical carbon.
This refers to associated petroleum gas, or APG. It comes out of the ground along with oil. If there is no infrastructure nearby for collection, processing, or transportation, such gas is often burned directly at the fields. The problem is that a large amount of carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, and the resource itself is essentially wasted.
According to Rosstat, in 2025, 25.1 billion cubic meters of associated gas were flared at Russian fields. This is 6.8% more than the previous year. For companies, this is not only an environmental but also a financial problem: in Russia, it is allowed to burn no more than 5% of the total volume of extracted APG. For exceeding the norm by 500 million cubic meters, enterprises may face fines of 10 billion rubles and another 8 billion rubles in compensation for damage to atmospheric air.
Scientists from MAI and OIVT RAS proposed a different path – to process APG by thermal pyrolysis. In such cases, the gas is not burned in an open flare, but passed through a special ceramic reactor heated to 700–1400 °C. As a result, hydrocarbons decompose, and pure hydrogen and technical carbon – black soot – can be obtained at the outlet.
For this purpose, a laboratory setup based on a furnace with a ceramic reactor has already been created. There are no analogues of such a setup in Russia yet, MAI noted. As part of the project, a pilot plant has also been assembled, which is planned to be tested at oil production sites.
The resulting technical carbon can be in demand in aviation, energy, and the chemical industry. Such materials are used in composites, lightweight lightning protection systems, electromagnetic radiation shields, and radio-absorbing materials. Hydrogen, in turn, can be used as fuel, in metallurgy for iron reduction from ore, in ammonia production, and in other industries.