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Large Scale Hydrogen Production Using Nuclear Power

David Barbara, Andrew Carmean, Dustin Kraemer and Shripad T. Revankar

School of Nuclear Engineering Purdue University West Lafayette, IN 47907

Abstract Hydrogen production using the Sulfur-Iodine (SI) process coupled to a high temperature gas cooled nuclear reactor was simulated with physical models for the processes. The models included energy balance for the SI process, thermal models for the heat exchanger design, and Brayton cogeneration unit. Process parameters such as mass flow rates of reactor coolant, reactant gases, heat exchanger pipe size, and number of heat exchanger pipes were examined. The computational model predicted that the 265 MW thermal pebble bed modular reactor could produce 17.38 million kg of hydrogen per year. Because excess heat still had to be removed from the helium gas to meet reactor thermalhydraulic specifications, a Brayton cycle was considered as a method of both further cooling the helium gas and producing electricity with overall plant efficiency to 36.3%.

Introduction The current power generation plants and automotive exhaust have contributed to the environmental pollution and public health problems. These issues together with global and national energy security concerns have generated new ideas for energy production in the last several years including diversification. One of the most promising solutions is hydrogen-based fuel cells. Hydrogen as a carrier of energy is superior to other forms of energy carriers for power generation, transportation and storage. Key challenges for the hydrogen-fuel cell based energy system are the sourcing of hydrogen and development of efficient, affordable and safe production processes.

There is a large demand for the hydrogen and it is increasing at nearly 4-10 percent a year. In the future hydrogen can reduce oil use for transportation and dramatically reduce our reliance on oil. Currently a very small amount of hydrogen is used as a fuel; most of it is used for commercial chemical use. Approximately two-thirds of the hydrogen produced is used for commercial fixation of nitrogen from the air to produce ammonia for fertilizer. Other uses of the hydrogen produced are petroleum refining, hydrogenation of fats and oils, methanol production, in hydrodealkylation, hydrocracking, and hydrodesulphurization, welding, metallic ore reduction, hydrochloric acid production, and the study of liquid hydrogen [1]. In relation to the 9 million tons of hydrogen the US is currently producing per year, approximately 120 million tons of hydrogen per year would be required to replace all of the gasoline use for transportation [2].

Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Education

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Barbara, D., & Revankar, S. (2005, June), Large Scale Hydrogen Production Using Nuclear Power Paper presented at 2005 Annual Conference, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--15329