2023 AIChE Annual Meeting

(622d) The Implications of Syngas CO2 Capture on the Downstream H2 Purification Pressure Swing Adsorption in a Blue Hydrogen Production Plant

Authors

Ahn, H. - Presenter, University of Edinburgh
Chen, Y., University of Edinburgh
It is envisioned that blue hydrogen will play a crucial role in the future energy mix, acting as dispatchable capacity for complementing green hydrogen the production of which inherently fluctuates greatly over time1. It appears that the best strategy to decarbonise a reforming- or gasification- based hydrogen production plant is to capture CO2 from the high pressure synthesis gas stream as evidenced in the Air Products Port Arthur project and the Shell Quest CCS project.

A H2 PSA (Pressure Swing Adsorption) process is located downstream of the syngas CO2 capture process. Accordingly, the H2 PSA is required to process the feed gas stream that contains much less CO2 than what it would contain without CO2 capture. It is expected that the H2 PSA would benefit from the change of the syngas feed composition. For example, a simulation study showed that a H2 PSA was able to achieve a very high hydrogen product recovery of up to 94% when processing a decarbonised syngas stream.2

In this study, it is aimed to evaluate the impacts that the feed gas composition change has on the performance of the H2 PSA using an Equilibrium Theory model3,4.

References

1. HM Government, UK Hydrogen Strategy, 2021.

2. Luberti, M.; Friedrich D.; Brandani, S.; Ahn, H., Design of a H2 PSA for Cogeneration of Ultrapure Hydrogen and Power at an Advanced Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle with Pre-combustion Capture. Adsorption 2014, 20, 511-524.

3. Chen, Y.; Ahn, H., Optimization Strategy for Enhancing the Product Recovery of a Pressure Swing Adsorption through Pressure Equalization or Co-current Depressurization: A Case Study of Recovering Hydrogen from Methane. Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research 2023, 62(12), 5286-5296.

4. Chen, Y.; Ahn, H., Feasibility Study of Vacuum Pressure Swing Adsorption for CO2 Capture from an SMR Hydrogen Plant: Comparison between Synthesis Gas Capture and Tail Gas Capture. Frontiers in Chemical Engineering, 2021, 3:742963.