Optimization of Economic and Operability Performances of Water-gas Shift Membrane Reactor

Energy and environmental issues have drawn increasing research attentions where moving toward hydrogen economy is considered as one viable solution to the problems. A new way to producing hydrogen via the water-gas shift reaction with a potential simultaneous carbon capture is through a membrane reactor. In this paper, a multi-scale heterogeneous one-dimensional dynamic model incorporating both inter-and intra-particle heat and mass transfer effects is constructed for a multi-tubular membrane reactor system. Four membrane reactor configurations are evaluated via the principal component analysis which reveals three critical parameters (reactor length, tube radius and inlet feed temperature) affecting the net present value of the configurations. An optimization considering both economic and operability criteria is formulated to obtain optimal trade-offs between the economic and dynamic performances of the membrane reactor. It is found that the membrane reactor application to produce hydrogen is dynamically and economically feasible.