Conceptual Design of Low-Temperature Hydrogen Production and High-Efficiency Nuclear Reactor Technology

Abstract

Hydrogen, a potential alternative energy source, is produced commercially by methane (or LPG) steam reforming, a process that requires high temperatures, which are produced by burning fossil fuels. However, as this process generates large amounts of CO 2 , replacement of the combustion heat source with a nuclear heat source for 773 - 1 173 K processes has been proposed in order to eliminate these CO 2 emissions. In this paper, a novel method of nuclear hydrogen production by reforming dimethyl ether (DME) with steam at about 573 K is proposed. From a thermodynamic equilibrium analysis of DME steam reforming, the authors identified conditions that provide high hydrogen production fraction at low pressure and temperatures of about 523 - 573 K. By setting this low-temperature hydrogen production process upstream from a turbine and nuclear reactor at about 573 K, the total energy utilization efficiency according to equilibrium mass and heat balance analysis is about 50%, and it is 75% for a fast breeder reactor (FBR), where turbine is upstream of the reformer.