Techno economic comparison of combustor integrated steam reforming and sorption enhanced chemical looping steam reforming of methanol

Abstract

Methanol steam reforming (MSR) has gained significant attention for in-situ hydrogen (H2) production. To overcome the high energy requirement in the process, two modified methods such as combustor integrated steam reforming (CISR), and sorption enhanced chemical looping steam reforming (SE-CLSR) are widely used for the production of H2. In the present work, a techno-economic comparison of CISR and SE-CLSR models has been carried out using Aspen Plus V11to assess the economic viability of hydrogen generation by MSR process. SE-CLSR model is developed considering NiO as an oxygen transfer material (OTM). Simulations have been performed to observe a strong dependence of methanol conversion, hydrogen yield, CO selectivity with different operating conditions like temperature, steam to methanol (S/M) ratio, catalyst weight to methanol molar ratio. The sensitivity analysis of the considered models is performed to obtain the optimum operating conditions. The hydrogen production cost is estimated as 2.66 $/kg and 2.79 $/kg from CISR and SE-CLSR processes, respectively.