Adsorption enhanced reaction process for hydrogen production from steam reforming of methane

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the adsorption enhanced reaction process for hydrogen production from steam reforming of methane on both the experimental and simulation studies. The studies are divided into two parts including i) the experimental studies to observe the possibility of using multifunctional catalyst synthesized by Ni impregnated on CO₂ adsorbent ii) the simulation to study the influence of different K₂CO₃ promoted HTC sorbents on the performance of SESMR process and to analyze the effect of the operating parameters on the pre-breakthrough period. From the experimental study on hydrogen production by Ni/CaO, the multifunctional catalyst can produce 80% hydrogen purity at 873 K. It is further revealed that the use of this catalyst eliminates the use of Al₂O₃, and thus it is possible to operate the reaction using a reactor with a smaller size. From the simulation studies, the difference in CO₂ adsorption characteristics obtained from different K₂CO₃-HTC sorbents especially CO₂ equilibrium isotherm of HTCs results in different performance of SESMRP. For the operating condition that the CO₂ adsorption kinetics of HTC sorbent is high enough, the system packed with the CO₂ adsorbent which has high adsorption capacity can produce high purity hydrogen even though the system is not operated at severe operating condition, resulting in energy saving.