Application of multisection packing concept to sorption-enhanced steam methane reforming reaction for high-purity hydrogen production

• SE-SMR reaction was performed using catalyst–sorbent mixture at various temperatures.
• The SE-SMR reaction performance is highly dependent on the reaction temperature.
• The multisection packing concept was successfully applied to the SE-SMR reaction.
• More high-purity H2 is produced with multisection packing.

Hydrogen has been gaining popularity as a new clean energy carrier, and bulk hydrogen production is achieved through the steam methane reforming (SMR) reaction. Since hydrogen produced via the SMR reaction contains large amounts of impurities such as unreacted reactants and byproducts, additional purification steps are needed to produce high-purity hydrogen. By applying the sorption-enhanced reaction (SER), in which catalytic reaction and CO2 byproduct removal are carried out simultaneously in a single reactor, high-purity hydrogen can be directly produced. Additionally, the thermodynamic limitation of conventional SMR reaction is circumvented, and the SMR reaction process becomes simplified. To improve the performance of the SER, a multisection packing concept was recently proposed. In this study, the multisection packing concept is experimentally demonstrated by applying it to a sorption-enhanced SMR (SE-SMR) reaction. The experimental results show that the SE-SMR reaction is significantly influenced by the reaction temperature, owing to the conflicting dependence of the reaction rate and the CO2 sorption uptake on the reaction temperature. Additionally, it is confirmed that more high-purity hydrogen (<10 ppm of CO) can be produced by applying the multisection packing concept to the SE-SMR reactions operated at sufficiently high temperatures where the SMR reaction is not limited by rate.

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