Integration
of membrane hydrogen separation and carbon dioxide
capture with fuel steam reforming efficiently promoted hydrogen production
and feedstock conversion. In this study, catalytic steam reforming
of coke oven gas in a sorption-enhanced fluidized bed membrane reactor
(MA-SE-SRCOG) was simulated using a reactive three-fluid model under
the Euler framework. The numerical studies provided insights into
details about interactions of multiscale subprocesses, including hydrogen
permeation, carbon dioxide adsorption, catalytic reforming, and multiphase
flow dynamics, during MA-SE-SRCOG. Concentration polarization caused
by hydrogen separation was also examined. Meanwhile, impacts of several
operating parameters, such as reaction pressure, steam concentration,
membrane position, and reactor scale, on the performance of MA-SE-SRCOG
were evaluated in terms of CH4 conversion, CO selectivity,
hydrogen recovery factor, and CO2 fix factor. The simulation
results demonstrated that membrane hydrogen separation and carbon
dioxide adsorption promoted reforming kinetics and reactant conversions
in the fast reaction zone, and also extended the reactive zone, thus
efficiently improving the overall reforming efficiencies. Fast CO2 adsorption kinetics showed more profound enhancements on
reducing CO selectivity compared to membrane separation, which instead
had greater potential to facilitate high CH4 conversion
when membrane effectiveness (a parameter representing impacts of membrane
area, layer thickness and composite on permeation rates) was sufficiently
large, particularly at high operation pressures. With membrane effectiveness
increasing from 1 to 5, a CH4 conversion of 91.3% was achieved
by MA-SE-SRCOG at 0.33 MPa and 560 °C, while the H2 permeation flux was augmented from 0.077 mol/(m2·s)
to 0.192 mol/(m2·s). However, the increase of membrane
effectiveness would cause more serious H2 concentration
polarization in FBMR, which inhibited the effective H2 separation
rates, so membrane effectiveness >10 has been observed to not remarkably
benefit CH4 conversion and H2 production further.
High S/C (>6) enhanced the occurrence of larger
bubbles,
and decreased the driving force (hydrogen partial pressure) for hydrogen
permeation, both of which degraded the reforming performances and
reduced yield of high purity H2. The more closely membrane
units were installed to the fast reaction zone, the larger the enhancements
of membrane expected to exert on COG-steam reforming reactions. With
the given dimensions of the membrane tube, the decrease of reactor
diameter helped to decrease concentration polarization, so higher
CH4 conversion and H2 separation factors were
achieved.