Optimum Temperature Policy for Sorption Enhanced Steam Methane Reforming Process for Hydrogen Production

摘要

Sorption enhanced steam methane reforming (SE-SMR) process offers high potential for producing H_(2) in fuel cell applications compared to conventional catalytic steam methane reforming (SMR) process. The reactor temperature can significantly affect the performance of the SE-SMR reaction and simultaneous adsorption behavior of CO_(2). Determination of an optimal temperature policy in SE-SMR reactor is therefore an important optimization issue. Multi-stage operation is a possible way to implement optimum temperature policies. In the present work, simulation study has been carried out for multi-stage operation using a mathematical model incorporating basic mechanisms operating in a fixed bed reactor with nonlinear reaction kinetic features of an SE-SMR process. Three cases were considered for implementing the multi-stage concept and the results show that increase in temperature based on a policy leads to considerable improvement in the process performance.