Conceptual design of lead cooled reactor for hydrogen production

•Lead cooled reactor coupled with SOEC for hydrogen production.•Lead–bismuth eutectic direct contact with water for steam generation.•Hydrogen can be obtained at low temperature.

Hydrogen is considered as the most potential energy carrier in the near future and can be produced from nuclear energy by several means. Lead-based reactor is one of the advance reactors in hydrogen production. In this paper, a novel feasible system of lead cooled reactor coupled with solid oxide electrolysis cells (SOEC) is presented, which is named China LEAd-based Reactor for Hydrogen production (CLEAR-H). By taking advantage of the chemically inert and high density of lead–bismuth eutectic (LBE), the concept of LBE-water direct-contact steam generator is proposed to supply high temperature (up to 600 °C) and low pressure (0.1–0.2 MPa) steam for SOEC stack without additional decompression devices. The results show that 47 tons hydrogen and 3000 tons oxygen-enriched air are obtained per day, and the thermal-to-hydrogen efficiency can reach about 39%.