PARAMETRIC STUDY OF HIGH TEMPERATURE WATER GAS SHIFT REACTION FOR HYDROGEN PRODUCTION IN AN ADIABATIC PACKED BED MEMBRANE REACTOR

摘要

In this work, a theoretical study of an adiabatic Pd-Ag tubular membrane reactor is carried out for hydrogen recovery by carbon monoxide upgrading. The process is conducted using the catalytic high temperature water-gas-shift reaction (HT-WGS) over an industrial Fe_2O_3-Cr_2O_3-CuO catalyst. Indeed, a parametric sensitivity study was done by using a non-isothermal mathematical model developed for this purpose. The Pd-Ag membrane reactor performance was obtained by numerical integration of the obtained model and the principal metrics used are the CO conversion and on H_2 recovery predicted in a large game of operating conditions. From the main obtained results, the following remarks can be drawn: except of gas hourly space velocity (GHSV) and H_2O/CO feed molar ratio, increasing the inlet temperature, inert gas flow rate and reaction pressure are beneficial for achieving a higher hydrogen permeation rates. This leads to favor the H_2 production and resulting in the enhancement of CO conversion and of H_2 recovery with high purity. Finally, it was found that a near complete CO conversion (99.99%) and a high H_2 recovery (96.4%) can be achieved by combination of the obtained optimum operation conditions.