Pd-Alloy Membrane Reactor for Natural Gas Steam Reforming: an Innovative Process Design for the Capture of CO2

• Published in: Industrial & engineering chemistry research
• Main Authors: De Falco, Marcello, Salladini, Annarita, Palo, Emma, Iaquaniello, Gaetano
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Chemical Society 15.07.2015
• ISSN: 0888-5885; 1520-5045
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.iecr.5b01141

An innovative process scheme for the industrial production of pure hydrogen through a natural gas steam reforming reaction is proposed and assessed. The configuration, called CO2 Capture Reformer and Membrane Module (CC-RMM), is composed by a series of n reactor–separation unit modules, where the H2 production is supported and the hydrogen stream is separated by means of Pd-based dense selective membranes, an air separation unit (ASU), which provides a pure oxygen stream, and an oxy-combustor, where the oxygen reacts with the outlet reactors stream producing pure CO2 and the overall heat required by the process, thus allowing a global energy balance of the plant. After the operating parameters were optimized as number of reforming steps, reactor temperatures and pressures, and feedstock mixture composition, an economic comparison among the CC-RMM and three conventional natural gas steam reforming hydrogen production plants was performed, attesting that the proposed novel hybrid scheme is able to compete in terms of CO2 recovery costs (20.95 €/ton CO2) and of total energy requirement for pure hydrogen production and CO2 capture (3575 kcal/Nm3 H2 versus 3867–4191 kcal/Nm3 H2 of the conventional configurations). The performed simulation analysis has demonstrated the application potentialities of the proposed hydrogen production process configuration.