TechnoSER: Technical innovations for upscaling and commercialization of the Sorption-Enhanced Reforming technology
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Julien Meyer
This is a national project (IPN-CLIMIT) running from 2017 to 2019.
Sorption-Enhanced Reforming (SER) is an innovative reforming technology that allows pre-combustion CO2 capture at high temperature. It combines reforming, water gas shift and CO2-capture in the same reactor (reformer) providing a process intensification with hydrogen production in one single step. A high temperature solid CO2 sorbent (usually CaO-based), is introduced and mixed together with the reforming catalyst, in the reaction. The simultaneous removal of CO2 moves the thermodynamic equilibrium towards higher hydrogen production at lower temperatures, and hydrogen concentrations up to 98 vol% (dry basis) can be obtained in the temperature range of 550 – 650ºC. The CO2 captured as a solid carbonate is released by increasing the temperature in a second reactor, the regenerator. In this step, heat has to be provided via a high temperature heat exchanger or via oxy-combustion.
The main goal of TechnoSER is to develop an improved and optimized SER- process for cost-efficient hydrogen production with integrated CO2 capture focused on the main challenges for taking the technology to commercial use:
- Efficient heat transfer for regeneration of the CO2-sorbent
- Compact design of the reformer
- Optimized sorbent materials
The expected results are lower energy intensity in the process, as well as lower capital and production costs for hydrogen and for CO2 capture compared to state-of-the-art technologies.