Development of a hydrogen membrane reformer based CO2 emission free gas fired power plant

Publisher Summary The CO 2 Capture Project (CCP) is an international effort to develop new technology to capture and store CO 2 currently emitted by fixed sources such as turbines, heaters and boilers. Post combustion, pre-combustion, and “oxy-fuel” approaches have been studied in the chapter. In the pre-combustion approach fossil fuel is converted to hydrogen fuel and CO 2 is recovered for storage. Methane Steam Reforming (MSR) and water CO shift reactions are commonly used in hydrogen production from natural gas followed by separation of CO 2 by means of e.g. amine scrubbing. This technique gives high CO 2 purity, but is quite energy intensive. The aim of CCP funded work has been to develop novel dense hydrogen mixed conducting ceramic membranes (HMCM) with sufficient H 2 transport rates and stability under normal steam reforming conditions. Based on the measurements and theoretical evaluations, a main candidate materials system, was selected. Supported membrane tubes have been fabricated and one tube was tested in a pressurized hydrogen flux test rig under relevant process conditions. The measured hydrogen flux compared favorably with model predictions based on the atmospheric laboratory tests. However, the tested membrane tube was not gas impervious and improved membranes tubes need to be fabricated and tested to verify the project results. The novel HMCM based concept allows close to 100% CO 2 capture and the loss in efficiency is estimated to be only 5%-points compared with a conventional combined cycle power plant without CO 2 capture.