Comparative techno-economic analysis for steam methane reforming in a sorption-enhanced membrane reactor: Simultaneous H2 production and CO2 capture
Graphical abstract
Introduction
The increase in greenhouse gas emissions such as CO2, NOx, and perfluorinated compounds that are released during the combustion of fossil fuels has led to serious environmental concerns, and a global climate emergency (Altamash et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2019a; Cerrillo-Briones and Ricardez-Sandoval, 2019). Recently, the Korean government announced the Renewable Energy 3020 Plan and the Hydrogen Economy Activation Roadmap that outline an increase in renewable energy generation ratio of up to 20% and H2 production and application, respectively (Korean Government, 2019; Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy of Korea, 2017). H2 is regarded as an alternative energy resource to conventional fossil fuels because of its high energy density, and eco-friendly combustion (Bique and Zondervan, 2018; Liu et al., 2020). Currently, steam methane reforming (SMR) is a widely used process for the commercial production of H2, accounting for approximately 48% of global H2 production (Tran et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2019b). However, SMR in a conventional packed-bed reactor (PBR) has several serious drawbacks (Celik and Yildiz, 2017; Ma et al., 2017). Firstly, CO2 is produced as a byproduct of SMR, which is a major influential compound in global warming. Secondly, a high heat energy is required because of endothermic processes and finally, additional purification equipment is necessary to separate H2 from other byproducts.
To overcome these problems, a membrane reactor (MR), where an H2 separation membrane is inserted into a catalytic reactor, was introduced to enhance H2 production yield owing to the equilibrium shift driven by Le Chatelier’s principle (Medrano et al., 2018). In this process, an equilibrium shift occurs because H2 is continuously removed during the reaction through a H2 separation membrane (Kim et al., 2018a; Ountaksinkul et al., 2019). Furthermore, purified H2 can be obtained during the reaction without the use of an additional purification step. Ghasemzadeh et al. (2018) investigated the effects of technical parameters of transmembrane pressure from 0.5 to 1.5 bar, reaction temperature from 514 to 573 K, gas hourly space velocity from 3300 to 10,000 h−1, and steam/methanol ratio from one to three on the performance of methanol steam reforming in silica MR. They reported reaction temperature as the most influential parameter. Anzelmo et al. (2017a) conducted an experimental analysis of natural gas steam reforming in a Pd-based MR which had a 13 μm Pd layer under various operating conditions and ideal selectivity for H2/He and H2/Ar, with a reaction temperature of 673 K, a reaction pressure of 150 kPa to 300 kPa, and a sweep gas flow rate of 100 mL min−1. The authors reported a CH4 conversion of 84% and H2 recovery of 82% as the best performance under operating conditions of 673 K and 150 kPa. To determine the technical, economic and environmental feasibility, Heo et al. (2020) conducted a techno-economic analysis consisting of an itemized cost estimation, a sensitivity analysis (SA), and an uncertainty analysis (UA) using the Monte-Carlo simulation method, and a carbon footprint analysis for ethane steam reforming in a MR based on the results of a chemical process simulation using Aspen HYSYS®. These authors reported a significantly lower unit H2 production cost of 2.926 $ kgH2−1 for MR, and a CO2 emission reduction of 13.3% compared to a conventional reactor. Zhang et al. (2019a) investigated the performance of ammonia decomposition in a MR with a Ru catalyst impregnated in a Pd-coated porous yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) tube and suggested that 100% ammonia conversion could be obtained with a Cs promoter at temperature of less than 673 K. Zhang et al. (2019b) investigated the effect of CO2 in C2H6 to C2H4 conversion in a CO2 transport-based MR containing a Cr2O3-ZSM-5 catalyst inside and reported a C2H6 conversion of approximately 90%, C2H4 selectivity of approximately 60%, C2H4 selectivity of approximately 80%, and C2H4 flux density of 0.45 mL min−1. However, some problems, such as CO2 emissions and high energy requirements for SMR, remain, even though a membrane reactor is introduced. Another way to enhance H2 production yield is by employing a CO2 adsorbent in a reactor, namely, a sorption-enhanced reactor (SER). Schweitzer et al. (2018) conducted a process simulation and techno-economic analysis of a thermal capacity of 70 MW sorption enhanced biomass reforming process. They reported 32.8% and 43.7% of fuel to H2 efficiency and fuel to H2 and electricity efficiency, respectively. In addition, the capital cost of the reactor (gasifier) was identified as the most critical economic factor for the unit H2 production cost, and an increase in plant capacity could effectively reduce the unit H2 production cost. Alam et al. (2017a) performed a comparative process simulation of sorption-enhanced SMR coupled with chemical looping combustion and heat recovery steam generation. These authors confirmed that the newly introduced process was better than the conventional H2 production process in terms of 96% CH4 conversion and 95% CO2 capture efficiency. Dang et al. (2020) conducted an experiment on sorption-enhanced steam reforming of phenol obtained from biomass pyrolysis for high-purity H2 yield with a bifunctional catalyst, Ni-Ca-Al-O and demonstrated that 5Ni-CA2.8 was the optimized catalyst, with 98.88% H2 purity and approximately 100% phenol conversion. The best performance was observed when using the 5Ni-CA2.8 catalyst under 50 cycles of repeated processes, as well as no coke formation. Diglio et al. (2018a) conducted a 1-D numerical analysis of sorption-enhanced methane steam reforming, coupled with a network of reactors under isothermal conditions (973 K) and concluded that at least eight reactors in parallel were required for 92% purity of H2 production. Furthermore, the amount of H2 decreased from 2.9 molH2 molCH4−1 to 2.5 molH2 molCH4−1 when produced H2 was used to supply heat. A new concept of a sorption-enhanced membrane reactor (SEMR), which combines a membrane reactor with a CO2 adsorbent (Fig. 1) is proposed to address the shortcomings of a MR by employing of CO2 adsorbent (Ji et al., 2018). Ji et al. (2018) performed a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulation of SEMR to investigate high efficiency H2 production via SMR, and demonstrated that SEMR can not only decrease the CO2 fraction, but can also increase the H2 production yield. Lee et al. (2020) developed a 1-D model of a PBR, a MR with co-current flow, an MR with counter-current flow, a SEMR with co-current flow, and a SEMR with counter-current flow, and conducted a comparative study for the five different reactor systems in terms of H2 production, CO2 emission, and CH4 conversion. Wu et al. (2015) constructed SEMR with nano-CaO as the CO2 sorbent and the NiO/Al2O3 as reforming catalyst for SMR and reported a CH4 conversion of 27.2% and H2 purity of 98.1% at 500 ℃, which are higher than those at 600 ℃.
Fig. 2 indicates the number of peer-reviewed published papers focusing on SMR within the last five years. They are classified into three specific topics (MR, SER, and SEMR) and five sub-topics (simulation, experiment, economic analysis, simulation + experiment, and simulation + economic analysis).
It has been demonstrated that SEMRs are rarely investigated compared to MRs and SERs. However, some published research exits on SEMR with water–gas shift reaction and glycerol steam reforming. Ghasemzadeh et al. (2017) developed a CFD model for a SEMR to examine H2 production during water-gas shift reaction. They confirmed that higher H2 production was observed in the case of a SEMR compared to a MR and a SER, with a positive effect of temperature increase in terms of H2 production. Silva et al. (2019) conducted a comparative experiment on glycerol steam reforming using a conventional reactor, a SER, and a SEMR. The authors demonstrated the advantage of combining both CO2 adsorbent and a MR by higher H2 production compared to the other reactor systems. In terms of the five sub-topics (Fig. 2), economic analyses are rarely reported. Subraveti et al. (2021) developed a techno-economic optimization model for a CO2 capture vacuum swing adsorption (VSA) process integrated with a SMR using three different adsorbents, namely, Zeolite 13X, UTSA-16, and ⅡSERP MOF2 and reported the lowest CO2 capture cost of 33.6 € tonCO2−1 for ⅡSERP MOF2. Roussanaly et al. (2020) conducted a techno-economic analysis of a H2 production system by modeling the SMR process. They reported H2 production costs of 12.2 and 18.1 € Nm−3 for without and with, CO2 capture, and a CO2 avoidance cost of 67 € tonCO2−1 for a H2 production capacity of 450 tonH2 day−1.
Rather than an overall process simulation, in previous work, a numerical study of 1-D modeling in terms of H2 production and CO2 emission for reactor design was conducted for five different reactors, namely, a PBR, a MR with co-current flow, a MR with counter-current flow, a SEMR with co-current flow, and a SEMR with counter-current flow. In the current study, a comparative thermodynamic and economic evaluation, considering the entire process system, was conducted for a PBR, a MR, and a SEMR to identify which technology is optimal in terms of technical, economic, and environmental aspects (Fig. 3). Furthermore, a comparative study was performed under the same operating conditions, such as temperature, pressure, and flow rate. Firstly, a thermodynamic analysis was conducted to identify which technology performs best in terms of H2 production yield among a PBR (conventional), a MR (membrane), a SEMR (membrane and CO2 adsorbent), and CO2 capture for zero CO2 emissions during H2 production based on lab-scale specification of reactor. Secondly, an economic evaluation was undertaken to provide a deeper economic understanding based on the economic results of itemized cost estimations and a SA. Finally, a Monte-Carlo simulation method conducted an uncertainty analysis to confirm how the change in natural gas cost and CO2 tax credit (future cost fluctuation) affected the unit H2 production cost.
Section snippets
Process simulation
Aspen Plus® is a commercial software widely used for the simulation of various chemical processes, such as fine chemistry, general chemistry, polymers, and electrolytes. In this study, it was utilized to conduct a thermodynamic analysis and obtain process flow diagrams for a PBR, a MR, and a SEMR. A theoretical study using a process simulation was conducted to investigate potential of a SEMR compared to a PBR and a MR. Reaction sets were composed of SMR (Eqs. (1) and (3)), water gas shift
Thermodynamic analysis from process simulation
Fig. 6 presents the process simulation results in terms of the H2 production rate for reaction temperatures ranging from 673 K to 973 K.
For all of the cases considered in this study, more H2 is produced when the reaction temperature increases because of its thermal properties such as the endothermic process, which requires heat for the reaction. Compared to a PBR, a higher H2 production rate is obtained for both a MR and a SEMR due to Le Chatelier’s principle and, a further increase in the H2
Conclusion
A techno-economic analysis for steam methane reforming (SMR) was conducted for a packed-bed reactor (PBR), a membrane reactor (MR), and a sorption-enhanced membrane reactor (SEMR), respectively. A process simulation was conducted using Aspen Plus® to create process flow diagrams of SMR for a PBR, a MR, and a SEMR and an economic analysis employing various economic analysis methods such as itemized cost estimation, a sensitivity analysis, and an uncertainty analysis was performed to evaluate the
Conflicts of interest statement
None.
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP) granted financial resource from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, Republic of Korea (Nos. 20182020201260, 20203020040010).
References (122)
- et al.
Modelling of high purity H2 production via sorption enhanced chemical looping steam reforming of methane in a packed bed reactor
Fuel
(2017) - et al.
Modelling of H2 production in a packed bed reactor via sorption enhanced steam methane reforming process
Int. J. Hydrogen Energy
(2017) - et al.
Modelling of H2 production via sorption enhanced steam methane reforming at reduced pressures for small scale applications
Int. J. Hydrogen Energy
(2019) - et al.
Steam methane reforming in a PdAu membrane reactor: long-term assessment
Int. J. Hydrogen Energy
(2016) - et al.
Self-sustained process scheme for high purity hydrogen production using sorption enhanced steam methane reforming coupled with chemical looping combustion
J. Clean. Prod.
(2017) - et al.
Self-sustained process scheme for high purity hydrogen production using sorption enhanced steam methane reforming coupled with chemical looping combustion
J. Clean. Prod.
(2017) - et al.
Hydrogen by sorption enhanced methane reforming: a grain model to study the behavior of bi-functional sorbent-catalyst particles
Chem. Eng. Sci.
(2016) - et al.
Sorption enhanced catalytic Steam Methane Reforming: experimental data and simulations describing the behaviour of bi-functional particles
Chem. Eng. J.
(2017) - et al.
Investigating the effects of mixing ionic liquids on their density, decomposition temperature, and gas absorption
Chem. Eng. Res. Des.
(2019) - et al.
Energy efficient sorption enhanced-chemical looping methane reforming process for high-purity H2 production: experimental proof-of-concept
Appl. Energy
(2016)
Sorption enhanced–chemical looping steam methane reforming: optimizing the thermal coupling of regeneration in a fixed bed reactor
Fuel Process. Technol.
Natural gas steam reforming reaction at low temperature and pressure conditions for hydrogen production via Pd/PSS membrane reactor
J. Memb. Sci.
Natural gas steam reforming reaction at low temperature and pressure conditions for hydrogen production via Pd/PSS membrane reactor
J. Membr. Sci.
Hydrogen production via natural gas steam reforming in a Pd-Au membrane reactor. Comparison between methane and natural gas steam reforming reactions
J. Membr. Sci.
Hydrogen production via natural gas steam reforming in a Pd-Au membrane reactor. Investigation of reaction temperature and GHSV effects and long-term stability
J. Membr. Sci.
GRAMS: a general framework describing adsorption, reaction and sorption-enhanced reaction processes
Chem. Eng. Sci.
Analysis of textural properties of CaO-based CO2 sorbents by ex situ USAXS
Chem. Eng. J.
On the energy efficiency of hydrogen production processes via steam reforming using membrane reactors
Int. J. Hydrogen Energy
Modeling of carbonation reaction for CaO-based limestone with CO2 in multitudinous calcination-carbonation cycles
Int. J. Hydrogen Energy
Investigation of hydrogen production methods in accordance with green chemistry principles
Int. J. Hydrogen Energy
Robust optimization of a post-combustion CO2 capture absorber column under process uncertainty
Chem. Eng. Res. Des.
The effects of water vapor and coal ash on the carbonation behavior of CaO–sorbent supported by γ-Al2O3 for CO2 capture
Fuel Process. Technol.
Core-shell structured CaO-Ca9Al6O18@Ca5Al6O14/Ni bifunctional material for sorption-enhanced steam methane reforming
Chem. Eng. Sci.
Sorption-enhanced steam-methane reforming with simultaneous sequestration of CO2 on fly ashes — proof of concept and simulations for gas–solid–solid trickle flow reactor
Chem. Eng. Process. Process. Intensif.
Experiments, modeling and scaling-up of membrane reactors for hydrogen production via steam methane reforming
Chem. Eng. Process. Process. Intensif.
A two-dimensional mathematical model for the catalytic steam reforming of methane in both conventional fixed-bed and fixed-bed membrane reactors for the Production of hydrogen
Int. J. Hydrogen Energy
Tailored Ce- and Zr-doped Ni/hydrotalcite materials for superior sorption-enhanced steam methane reforming
Int. J. Hydrogen Energy
Sorption enhanced steam methane reforming on catalyst–sorbent bifunctional particles: a CFD fluidized bed reactor model
Chem. Eng. Sci.
Combined sorbent and catalyst material for sorption enhanced reforming of methane under cyclic regeneration in presence of H2O and CO2
Fuel Process. Technol.
Sorption enhanced steam methane reforming based on nickel and calcium looping: a review
Chem. Eng. Process. Process. Intensif.
Catalytic and sorbent materials based on mayenite for sorption enhanced steam methane reforming with different packed-bed configurations
Int. J. Hydrogen Energy
Development of a Ni–CaO–mayenite combined sorbent–catalyst material for multicycle sorption enhanced steam methane reforming
Fuel
Effect of Ni precursor salts on Ni–mayenite catalysts for steam methane reforming and on Ni–CaO–mayenite materials for sorption enhanced steam methane reforming
Int. J. Hydrogen Energy
Development of Ni- and CaO-based mono- and bi-functional catalyst and sorbent materials for Sorption Enhanced Steam Methane Reforming: performance over 200 cycles and attrition tests
Fuel Process. Technol.
Multicycle sorption enhanced steam methane reforming with different sorbent regeneration conditions: experimental and modelling study
Chem. Eng. J.
Pure hydrogen production by steam reforming of methane mixtures with various propane contents in a membrane reactor with the industrial nickel catalyst and a Pd–Ru alloy foil
Int. J. Hydrogen Energy
Complete Ca/Cu cycle for H2 production via CH4 sorption enhanced reforming in a lab-scale fixed bed reactor
Chem. Eng. J.
Techno-economic analysis of sorption-enhanced steam methane reforming in a fixed bed reactor network integrated with fuel cell
J. Power Sources
Modelling of sorption-enhanced steam methane reforming in a fixed bed reactor network integrated with fuel cell
Appl. Energy
Feasibility of CaO/CuO/NiO sorption-enhanced steam methane reforming integrated with solid-oxide fuel cell for near-zero-CO2 emissions cogeneration system
Appl. Energy
Local transport and reaction rates in a fixed bed reactor tube: endothermic steam methane reforming
Chem. Eng. Sci.
Hydrogen separation by thin vanadium-based multi-layered membranes
Int. J. Hydrogen Energy
CFD analysis of a hybrid sorption-enhanced membrane reactor for hydrogen production during WGS reaction
Int. J. Hydrogen Energy
Hydrogen production as a green fuel in silica membrane reactor: experimental analysis and artificial neural network modeling
Fuel
Cerium-promoted bi-functional hybrid materials made of Ni, Co and hydrotalcite for sorption-enhanced steam methane reforming (SESMR)
Int. J. Hydrogen Energy
CO2 capture from waste-to-energy plants: techno-economic assessment of novel integration concepts of calcium looping technology
Resour. Conserv. Recycl.
Experimental investigation of improved calcium-based CO2 sorbent and Co3O4/SiO2 oxygen carrier for clean production of hydrogen in sorption-enhanced chemical looping reforming
Int. J. Hydrogen Energy
Computationally efficient CFD model for scale-up of bubbling fluidized bed reactors applied to sorption-enhanced steam methane reforming
Fuel Process. Technol.
Numerical simulation of a bubbling fluidized bed reactor for sorption-enhanced steam methane reforming under industrially relevant conditions: effect of sorbent (dolomite and CaO-Ca12Al14O33) and operational parameters
Fuel Process. Technol.
Computational fluid dynamic simulation of a sorption-enhanced palladium membrane reactor for enhancing hydrogen production from methane steam reforming
Energy
Cited by (16)
Performance assessment and exergy analysis of hydrogen production from natural gas in a petrochemical unit (A real case study)
2024, International Journal of Hydrogen EnergyNovel propane dehydrogenation process design integrated with membrane reactor and solid oxide fuel cell: Economic and environmental aspects
2023, Journal of Environmental Chemical EngineeringHydrogen from natural gas and biogas: Building bridges for a sustainable transition to a green economy
2023, Gas Science and EngineeringCO<inf>2</inf> adsorption by coal-based activated carbon modified with sodium hydroxide
2022, Materials Today Communications
- 1
Both authors contributed equally to this work.