A cost assessment study for a large-scale water gas shift catalytic membrane reactor module in the presence of uncertainty

A comprehensive economic performance evaluation framework for an actual large-scale water-gas-shift Pd-based catalytic membrane reactor (CMR) module for hydrogen production is presented. Since a detailed assessment of the technical performance of the CMR built at WPI has been reported previously (Catalano et al., 2013), the present research study focuses on an assessment of the module's economic performance characteristics, and thus, can be viewed as complementary. The proposed evaluation framework encompasses comprehensive baseline models for both Fixed Capital Investment (FCI) and Total Capital Investment (TCI) while various sources of uncertainty are identified whose effect on CMR's economic performance is explicitly taken into account using Monte Carlo techniques. As a result, insightful distribution profiles of FCI and TCI are derived rather than single-point value estimates and more realistic distributions of CMR economic performance outcomes are generated and statistically characterized. The latter could potentially inform development efforts of this new technology option for hydrogen production purposes.