Hydrogen Production from Natural Gas Using an Iron‐Based Chemical Looping Technology: Process Modeling, Heat Integration, and Exergy Analysis

Abstract

H 2 production under a carbon‐constrained scenario attracts intensive research focus. Currently, the state‐of‐art H 2 production technology with CO 2 capture is the steam‐methane reforming (SMR) process with downstream CO 2 sequestration. However, the need for combusting additional natural gas to supplement the endothermic heat for the reformer and the complexity of downstream H 2 purification and CO 2 separation processes make SMR less efficient and economical. As an alternative, an iron‐based three‐reactor chemical looping technology to convert natural gas to H 2 (NTH) with 90% CO 2 capture was designed and the process modeling was presented in previous publications. This work continues the study by focusing on the heat integration and exergy analysis of the process using ASPEN PLUS and ASPEN Energy Analyzer as simulation tools. Parametric studies of varying operating parameters are conducted, and the heat exchanger network of the NTH process is designed. Finally, the performance of the NTH process is compared with SMR, showing a 4.3% (percentage point) increase in the exergy efficiency.