Self-sustained process scheme for high purity hydrogen production using sorption enhanced steam methane reforming coupled with chemical looping combustion

Chemical looping processes with their inherent feature of CO2 sequestration are found to be promising in developing alternative combustion and reforming technologies that are cleaner and safer. In the present work, a novel, self-sustained, efficient process scheme has been proposed for the production of high purity hydrogen by integrating sorption enhanced steam methane reforming (SESMR) with chemical looping combustion (CLC) and by incorporating heat recovery steam generation (HRSG) as well as power generation sections. The integration between SESMR and CLC is proposed with the objectives of increasing H2 productivity, reducing CO2 emission while effectively conserving the process heat, which is achieved by coupling fuel reactor flue gases with reformer and air reactor outlet gases with regenerator. Thermodynamic investigation of the proposed process is carried out based on a steady state plant wide model developed using ASPEN Plus. Further, sensitivity analysis is carried out to analyse the process performance and to evaluate the optimum operating parameters. The results demonstrate the improved performance of proposed scheme over existing processes in terms of exhibiting 98.05% H2 purity, 95.1% CO2 capture efficiency along with 70.3% energy and 68.24% exergy efficiencies.