High purity hydrogen production with a 10kWth RESC prototype system

Abstract

The Reformer Steam Iron Cycle (RESC) is suitable to attain high-purity pressurized hydrogen from a broad range of renewables and residues in decentralized on-site applications. This paper introduces a 10 kWth lab prototype system for high purity hydrogen production exceeding 99.999%. The significantly enlarged reactor system comprises of a combined steam reformer and fixed bed chemical looping system within a single unit. A series of experiments was conducted to demonstrate the system applicability for decentralized hydrogen production with an improved process layout. A previously undiscovered hydrogen purity was realized from a fixed-bed chemical looping prototype system. Supplementary, the applied oxygen carrier material was characterized to reveal occurring degradation effects in large-size reactors as a significantly increased thermal stress. A characterization by SEM, EDX, light microscopy and BET methods was performed to exhibit the effects on the pelletised material.