| Summary: |
The main goal of this project is the development of a hybrid membrane/ Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) H2/CO2 separation process, which will be a part of a fossil fuel de-carbonization process used for the pre-combustion CO2 capture. Methane steam reforming is currently the major route for hydrogen production and will be employed as a model case. High purity hydrogen (99.99+%) is usually recovered from the reformate by using a PSA process. A typical PSA waste gas stream is not usually recycled since it has to be recompressed to the PSA feed pressure for recovering only a small fraction of the recycled hydrogen. Furthermore, it cannot be used for CO2 sequestration since it contains significant amounts of H2 and CH4. A hybrid process is expected to combine the high throughput and H2 product purity of a PSA process with the lower operating costs of a membrane process. It is expected to enhance the overall H2 recovery and provide an H2-free CO2 stream ready for capture and sequestration. To achieve this goal, the following scientific tasks have been identified:
* Generation of transport and adsorption data for H2/CO2 multicomponent mixtures for well characterized membrane and sorbent materials.
* Development and improvement of membrane and PSA separation models
* Design and optimization of membrane, PSA and hybrid separation systems using the improved models developed.
* Component design for the manufacture of a lab-scale hybrid separation system prototype
* Assessment of the hybrid separation process sustainability and impact on the environment based on a life cycle analysis approach.
The following possible innovations are foreseen as an outcome of this project:
* H2 recovery improvement
* Simplification of PSA operation (reduction of steps) without loss of recovery and product purity
* Co-production of high purity H2 and CO2 streams
* Development of improved membrane and sorbent materials. |