(185ag) Process Intensification of Hydrogen Production Systems

Integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) is considered a promising technology for producing clean, affordable and secure power, and this technology has potential for further technological developments and improvements for carbon capture within efficiency. In the conventional IGCC plant, the water gas shift reaction (WGSR) is typically carried out in a sequence of two reactors (high temperature-WGSR and low temperature-WGSR), with inter-stage cooling, to overcome both kinetic and equilibrium limitations for the enrichment of H₂. However, carbon capture and storage process causes energy efficiency penalties since a significant amount of energy is needed to separate CO₂ from flue gas and to compress CO₂ for transport/storage. According to National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), the efficiency of IGCC (with CO₂ capture) decreases approximately 15-20% compared to IGCC without CO₂ capture. For these reasons, alternative technologies are required to eliminate these penalties and ensure competitive aspects of power plants with CO₂ capture. The process is therefore well-suited for the application of novel intensification concepts, integrating reaction and separation into a single unit. Adsorption and membranes are the several techniques to accomplish such intensification for the WGSR, as part of a multifunctional reactor for simultaneous production, separation, and purification of hydrogen from syngas mixtures. The primary objective of this work is to develop an advanced multi-scale mathematical model and demonstrate design/intensification of reaction/separation systems for the hydrogen production. The study on various hydrogen production processes (conventional high temperature shift reactor-HTSR/low temperature shift reactor-LTSR, proposed HTSR/membrane separation-MS/LTSR/MS and proposed low temperature membrane reactors-LTMRs) is carried out in terms of design and intensification concepts.