Assessment and analysis of hydrogen and electricity production from a Generation IV lead-cooled nuclear reactor integrated with a copper-chlorine thermochemical cycle

An integrated system for compressed hydrogen and electrical power production based on a Generation IV nuclear reactor (a lead-cooled reactor) is proposed. The hydrogen is produced by the integrated system through a hybrid thermochemical and electrical water decomposition cycle. The water decomposition cycle is based on copper and chlorine compounds and decomposes water through four main steps. The electrical power is produced by the Rankine cycle, which also contributes to cooling the compressed hydrogen between the compression stages as well as providing the electrical power required by the electrolysis step in the water decomposition cycle. In the proposed system, a heat recovery network is incorporated within the water decomposition cycle so that only the hydrolysis and the oxygen production reactors in the cycle receive thermal energy from the lead-cooled nuclear reactor. The integrated system is modeled and simulated by using engineering process simulation software (Aspen Plus). The performance of the integrated system is assessed with energy and exergy analyses, and the overall energy and exergy efficiencies are found to be 25.4% and 40.6%, respectively. The integrated system produces 3.45 g/s of compressed hydrogen ready for shipping and 467.2 kW of electrical power.