Optimization of steady-state and dynamic performances of water-gas shift reaction in membrane reactor

Membrane rector technology has been increasingly recognized as a promising solution to produce high-purity hydrogen and to support future realization of hydrogen economy. Although some of the economic evaluations have shown that the inclusion of membrane reactor into an existing IGCC plant may be a viable option, it remains to be answered whether the added system can be easily controlled or not. This paper presents a feasibility study of four pre-defined membrane reactor flowsheets (including auxiliary units) based on nominal throughput 23,200 t/day. The net present value (NPV) and v-gap metric are used as the economic and controllability performance criteria respectively. Considering uncertainties in future prices of hydrogen and electricity, the optimal NPV and v-gap metric are US$ 0.471 billion and 0.253 respectively. This suggests that the optimized membrane reactor flowsheet is feasible on the economic and controllability grounds.