Supporting Conversion Section of Hydrogen Production Unit by Membrane Modules to Produce Extra-Pure Hydrogen and Improving Equilibrium Conversion

Abstract

The main object of this research is the modification of an industrial hydrogen production unit with palladium-based membrane modules to produce extra-pure hydrogen and shift reactions toward the hydrogen production side. The considered hydrogen production unit includes a steam reformer, high and low-temperature shift converters, a carbon dioxide absorption tower, and a methanator. The membrane modules are applied in the catalytic reactors, and hydrogen is simultaneously penetrated from the reaction zone toward the sweep gas. In the first step, both conventional and membrane-supported processes are heterogeneously modeled based on the mass and energy balance equations at steady-state conditions. Then, the simulation results of the conventional process are compared with the plant data to prove the validity of the developed model. Finally, the simulation results of the conventional and membrane-supported processes are compared under the same operating conditions. In general, applying the membrane module to the system increases the hydrogen production rate from 63.95 to 67.21 mole s^-1. Based on the simulation results, supporting the conventional process with the membrane module increases the hydrogen production rate by 5.1%.