Utilizing Chemical Looping Combustion instead of Fired-Furnace in a Steam Methane Reforming for Enhancement of Hydrogen Production in a multi Tubular Reactor

A novel thermally coupled reactor containing steam methane reforming in the endothermic side and chemical looping combustion as an exothermic side has been investigated in this study. In this innovative configuration, huge fired furnace of conventional steam reforming process is substituted by chemical looping combustion in a recuperative coupled reactor. This reactor has three concentric tubes where the steam methane reforming is supposed to occur in the middle tube and the inner and outer tubes are considered to be air and fuel reactors of chemical looping combustion, respectively. Copper is selected as solid oxygen carrier in the chemical looping combustion process. Both oxidation and reduction of Cu in the air and fuel reactor are exothermic and used as heat sources for endothermic steam methane reforming. A steady state heterogeneous model of fixed bed for steam reformer and a moving bed for chemical looping combustion reactor predict the performance of this new configuration. The counter-current mode is investigated and simulation results are compared with corresponding predictions of the conventional steam reformer. The results prove that synthesis gas production is increased in thermally coupled reactor in comparison with conventional steam reformer.