Modeling analysis of water-gas-shift reaction on catalyst-packed ceramic-carbonate dual-phase membrane reactor for hydrogen production

Water-gas shift (WGS) reaction for hydrogen production and CO2 removal/capture in a catalyst-packed CO2-permselective membrane reactor is studied experimentally and simulated with a computational model. The reactor utilizes a tubular dense ceramic-carbonate dual-phase membrane with a commercial high-temperature WGS catalyst. Equations governing CO2 permeation through the membrane and WGS reaction kinetics on the catalyst were obtained through independent CO2 permeation experiments and a fixed-bed reaction kinetic study. The simulation results using the validated model are presented to examine the effects of feed gas composition, steam/CO ratio, gas hourly space velocity, temperature, reactor pressure, sweep to feed molar flow rate ratio, and the membrane area to catalyst volume ratio on the performance of the membrane reactor for WGS with CO2 removal. Under optimized conditions, the catalyst-packed membrane reactor for WGS demonstrates significantly enhanced CO conversion and product H2 purity by effectively removing/capturing CO2 from the WGS reaction side.