Abstract
The present work provides numerical investigations of oxygen permeation, hydrogen generation through water splitting using an oxygen transport membrane and oxy-combustion of syngas. The work involves two models; one for hydrogen generation and oxygen permeation from water splitting, and the other for syngas reaction kinetics. Considering steam dissociation reaction and oxygen permeation process, the hydrogen generation model is developed from oxygen permeation model using user defined function (UDF) that enable the transfer of oxygen across the membrane. The codes were written in C++, then compiled and hooked to the ANSYS Fluent 15.0 software. The investigations revealed that, due to combustion, the syngas reactive flow results in higher oxygen permeation and hydrogen generation rates than the non-reactive case. Effects of various influential parameters such as fuel composition, membrane thickness, operating temperature, sweep gas flow rate and CO2 circulation are investigated in the present study. It was realized that increase in sweep flow rate and inlet temperature results in enhanced oxygen permeation and hydrogen generation rates. Whereas, increase in CO/H2 ratio, membrane thickness and CO2 circulation reduces the amounts of hydrogen and oxygen generated.
1.Oxygen permeation and hydrogen generation from water splitting via OTR are studied.2.Oxy-combustion of syngas inside a water splitting OTR is investigated.3.Validations of hydrogen generation and syngas reaction kinetics models are performed.4.Effects of fuel composition, membrane thickness and temperature are investigated.5.Effects of sweep gas flow rate and CO2 circulation are investigated.