Performance analysis of a supercritical water-cooled nuclear reactor integrated with a combined cycle, a Cu-Cl thermochemical cycle and a hydrogen compression system

Abstract A novel integration is proposed and analyzed of a thermochemical water decomposition cycle with a supercritical water-cooled nuclear reactor, a combined cycle, and a hydrogen compression system. The supercritical water-cooled reactor in the integrated system has been investigated extensively in Canada. The integrated system uses a compression system to compress the product hydrogen. The hydrogen is produced via a hybrid thermochemical and electrical water decomposition cycle that utilizes the chemical couple of copper and chlorine. The integrated system is modeled and simulated on Aspen Plus, except for the steam circuit, which is simulated on Aspen Hysys. The hydrogen production rate from the proposed system is 3.56 kg/s. Both energy and exergy analyses are performed of the integrated system, and its overall energy and exergy efficiencies are, in this regard, found to be 16.9% and 27.8%, respectively.

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