Design of an integrated membrane system for high level hydrogen purification

The evolution of the world’s energy systems has been historically characterized by the research for new technologies able to lower costs and reduce the dependence on non-renewable energy sources. The hydrogen economy can represent the response to the growing energy request in a sustainable development scenario [1]. Among the most promising technologies developed at industrial level, membranes play an important role since they can compete with conventional systems in hydrogen separation from gas streams produced by fossil fuel combustion [2]. Nowadays a large effort is dedicated to design integrated cycles to obtain value products with saving of energy [3]. In this work, a screening of membrane separation and reaction units combined in different configurations has been carried out in order to find the best integrated system for the hydrogen purification and recovery from a gaseous stream. Moreover, the performance of more significant arrangements has been analysed in terms of power consumption and membrane surface request at different working conditions and fixed hydrogen recovery (90%).