Process analysis for hydrogen production by reaction integrated novel gasification (HyPr-RING)

Hydrogen production by the reaction integrated novel gasification (HyPr-RING) method was first proposed in 1999. This method involves the reactions of coal and CaO with H2O, that is, a combination of exothermic and endothermic, gas production and gas separation reactions, in a gasifier to produce H-2. The equipment for the HyPr-RING process consists mainly of a gasifier, a sorbent regenerator, and several heat exchangers. In this study, the process components and their mass and energy balances were analyzed by thermodynamic calculations. A fuel gas comprising an equilibrium mixture of 91% H-2 and 9% CH4 can be obtained by gasification of coal at 923 K and 3.0 Wa. The amount of fuel gas produced was calculated to be equivalent to 1.4 Nm(3)/kg(coal), giving a high cold gas efficiency of 0.77. The equilibrium H-2 and CH4 compositions are sensitive to the amount of steam contained in the,product gas. The energy contained in the coal is used in the gasifier and the regenerator in a ratio of about 3/2. This gives a good energy balance and a high cold gas efficiency for the process. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.