Volume 24: Sustainable Energy Solutions for a Post-COVID Recovery towards a Better Future: Part VII

Membrane-and-Cryogenic-Assisted Hydrogen Separation and Purification Process Ahmad Naquash, Muhammad Abdul Qyyum, Yus Donald Chaniago, Amjad Riaz, Noman Raza Sial, Muhammad Islam, Seongwoong Min, Hankwon Lim, Moonyong Lee, *

Abstract

Hydrogen (H2) is a clean energy carrier that has the potential to reduce carbon emissions. Currently, H2 is being produced from fossil fuels. The major drawback of fossil-based H2 production is the production of CO2 and other impurities along with it. H2 rich syngas has gained attention recently. In syngas, H2 is the main component along with carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen. To separate and purify H2, the pressure swing adsorption (PSA) method is adopted. PSA can produce high purity H2 but with low recovery. In this study, membrane and cryogenic distillation-based separation methods are analyzed and evaluated for the separation and purification of H2 from syngas. The cryogenic process achieved high H2 purity (99.999%) with high recovery (99.999%), yet the major challenge is high energy consumption (2.53 kWh/kgFeed). The membrane process, on the other hand, consumes less energy (0.88 kWh/kgFeed) but produces H2 with low purity (98.85%) and recovery (89.91%). The economic analysis of these processes showed that the membrane process is costeffective with less TCI (34.36 m$) than the cryogenic process (38.21 m$).

Keywords Syngas, organic Rankine cycle, cryogenic distillation, CO2 solidification, membrane process, hydrogen