On the Modeling of Continuous H2 Production by Sorption-Enhanced Steam Methane Reforming

To continuously produce blue hydrogen from methane efficiently, a dual fluidized bed reactor was designed, and the corresponding kinetic model was built with the commercial Aspen Plus software v2006 and user-defined FORTRAN routine. To prove the reliability and accuracy of the kinetic model in this work, the model predictions were compared against reported experimental data from similar devices. Then, sensitivity analyses were implemented to fully investigate the characteristics of the designed reactor. The effects of reforming temperature (TREF), calcination temperature (TCAL), steam to carbon mole ratio (RS/C), calcium to carbon mole ratio (RC/C), catalyst to sorbent mass ratio (mC/S) and the residence time (tR) on the produced H2 dry mole fraction (FH2), CH4 conversion rate (CCH4), carbon capture rate (CCO2), and the reactor efficiency (ER) were comprehensively analyzed. It was found that, at the optimal operating conditions (TREF = 650 °C, RS/C = 5.0, RC/C = 3.0, tR = 60 s, and mC/S = 3.0), CCH4 can reach 96%, CCO2 can reach 77.4%, FH2 can reach 94.3%, and ER can reach 67% without heat recover.