This work investigates life cycle costing analysis as a tool to estimate the cost of hydrogen to be used as fuel for Hydrogen Fuel Cell vehicles (HFCVs). The method of life cycle costing and economic data are considered to estimate the cost of hydrogen for centralised and decentralised production processes. In the current study, two major hydrogen production methods are considered, methane reforming and water electrolysis. The costing frameworks are defined for hydrogen production, transportation and final application. The results show that hydrogen production via centralised methane reforming is financially viable for future transport applications. The ownership cost of HFCVs shows the highest cost among other costs of life cycle analysis.

Proton-exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) are low-temperature fuel cells that have excellent starting performance due to their low operating temperature, can respond quickly to frequent load fluctuations, and can be manufactured in small packages. Unlike existing studies that mainly used hydrogen as fuel for PEMFCs, in this study, methane is used as fuel for PEMFCs to investigate its performance and economy. Methane is a major component of natural gas, which is more economically competitive than hydrogen. In this study, methane gas is reformed by the steam reforming method and is applied to the following five gas post-treatment systems: (a) Case 1—water−gas shift only (WGS), (b) Case 2—partial oxidation reforming only (PROX), (c) Case 3—methanation only, (d) Case 4—WGS + methanation, (e) Case 5—WGS + PROX. In the evaluation, the carbon monoxide concentration in the gas did not exceed 10 ppm, and the methane component, which has a very large greenhouse effect, was not regenerated in... [more]

The bi-reforming of methane (BRM) is a promising process which converts greenhouse gases to syngas with a flexible H2/CO ratio. As there are many factors that affect this process, the coupled effects of multi-parameters on the BRM product are investigated based on Gibbs free energy minimization. Establishing a reliable model is the foundation of process optimization. When three input parameters are changed simultaneously, the resulting BRM products are used as the dataset to train three artificial neural network (ANN) models, which aim to establish the BRM prediction model. Finally, the trained ANN models are used to predict the BRM products when the conditions vary in and beyond the training range to test their performances. Results show that increasing temperature is beneficial to the conversion of CH4. When the molar flow of H2O is at a low level, the increase in CO2 can enhance the H2 generation. While it is more than 0.200 kmol/h, increasing the CO2 flowrate leads to the increase... [more]

In this paper, several new processes are proposed which co-generate electricity and liquid fuels (such as diesel, gasoline, or dimethyl ether) from biomass, natural gas and heat from a high temperature gas-cooled reactor. This carbonless heat provides the required energy to drive an endothermic steam methane reforming process, which yields H2-rich syngas (H2/CO > 6) with lower greenhouse gas emissions than traditional steam methane reforming processes. Since downstream Fischer-Tropsch, methanol, or dimethyl ether synthesis processes require an H2/CO ratio of around 2, biomass gasification is integrated into the process. Biomass-derived syngas is sufficiently H2-lean such that blending it with the steam methane reforming derived syngas yields a syngas of the appropriate H2/CO ratio of around 2. In a prior work, we also demonstrated that integrating carbonless heat with combined steam and CO2 reforming of methane is a promising option to produce a syngas with proper H2/CO ratio for Fisch... [more]

In this study, a dynamic and two-dimensional model for a steam methane reforming process integrated with nuclear heat production was developed. The model is based on first principals and considers the conservation of mass, momentum and energy within the system. Very few model parameter needed to be fit based on the experimental data reported in the literature. Using the fitted model and existing data, an industrial scale design for the integrated steam reforming and nuclear heat process is proposed. The system performance was analyzed by studying the dynamic behaviour of the key variables of the system. It has been shown that the methane conversion in the SMR tubes are generally lower than conventional reforming processes due to the low temperature of the gas flows in the shell side. Several options were investigated to increase the conversion of the methane in the SMR tubes, we found that combining steam reforming with dry reforming processes together can provide significant improveme... [more]

These are Aspen Plus simulation files for a Biomass-Gas-and-Nuclear-To-Liquids chemical plant (a conceptional design), which uses the Copper-Chloride route for hydrogen production. This is a part of a larger work (see linked LAPSE record for pre-print and associated publication in Canadian J Chem Eng). Process sections and major units in this simulation include: Gasification, Integrated-Gasification-Methane-Reforming, Pre-Reforming, Water Gas Shift, Autothermal Reforming, Syngas Blending and Upgrading, Solid Oxide Fuel Cell power islands, Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis, Methanol Synthesis, Dimethyl Ether Synthesis, Heat Recovery and Steam Generation, CO2 Compression for Sequestration, Cooling Towers, and various auxiliary units for heat and pressure management. See the linked work for a detailed description of the model.

In this study, a dynamic and two-dimensional model for a steam methane reforming process integrated with nuclear heat production is developed. The model is based on first principles and considers the conservation of mass, momentum and energy within the system. The model is multi-scale, considering both bulk gas effects as well as spatial differences within the catalyst particles. Very few model parameters need to be fit based on the design specifications reported in the literature. The resulting model fits the reported design conditions of two separate pilot-scale studies (ranging from 0.4 to 10 MW heat transfer duty). A sensitivity analysis indicated that disturbances in the helium feed conditions significantly affect the system, but the overall system performance only changes slightly even for the large changes in the value of the most uncertain parameters.