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Frontiers of Chemical Science and Engineering

ISSN 2095-0179

ISSN 2095-0187(Online)

CN 11-5981/TQ

Postal Subscription Code 80-969

2018 Impact Factor: 2.809

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Front. Chem. Sci. Eng.    2016, Vol. 10 Issue (2) : 255-264    https://doi.org/10.1007/s11705-016-1567-1
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Pressure swing adsorption/membrane hybrid processes for hydrogen purification with a high recovery
Baojun Li,Gaohong He(),Xiaobin Jiang,Yan Dai,Xuehua Ruan
State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals, R&D Center of Membrane Science and Technology, School of Chemical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116012, China
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Abstract

Hydrogen was recovered and purified from coal gasification-produced syngas using two kinds of hybrid processes: a pressure swing adsorption (PSA)-membrane system (a PSA unit followed by a membrane separation unit) and a membrane-PSA system (a membrane separation unit followed by a PSA unit). The PSA operational parameters were adjusted to control the product purity and the membrane operational parameters were adjusted to control the hydrogen recovery so that both a pure hydrogen product (>99.9%) and a high recovery (>90%) were obtained simultaneously. The hybrid hydrogen purification processes were simulated using HYSYS and the processes were evaluated in terms of hydrogen product purity and hydrogen recovery. For comparison, a PSA process and a membrane separation process were also used individually for hydrogen purification. Neither process alone produced high purity hydrogen with a high recovery. The PSA-membrane hybrid process produced hydrogen that was 99.98% pure with a recovery of 91.71%, whereas the membrane-PSA hybrid process produced hydrogen that was 99.99% pure with a recovery of 91.71%. The PSA-membrane hybrid process achieved higher total H2 recoveries than the membrane-PSA hybrid process under the same H2 recovery of membrane separation unit. Meanwhile, the membrane-PSA hybrid process achieved a higher total H2 recovery (97.06%) than PSA-membrane hybrid process (94.35%) at the same H2 concentration of PSA feed gas (62.57%).
Keywords hydrogen purification      PSA      membrane separation      hybrid process     
Corresponding Author(s): Gaohong He   
Online First Date: 13 April 2016    Issue Date: 19 May 2016
 Cite this article:   
Baojun Li,Gaohong He,Xiaobin Jiang, et al. Pressure swing adsorption/membrane hybrid processes for hydrogen purification with a high recovery[J]. Front. Chem. Sci. Eng., 2016, 10(2): 255-264.
 URL:  
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fcse/EN/10.1007/s11705-016-1567-1
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fcse/EN/Y2016/V10/I2/255
Component CO CO2 H2 N2 CH4 O2 Total
v-% 1.12 31.61 62.57 4.33 0.37 0 100
Nm3/h 52281
Tab.1  Composition of the coal gasification syngas
Fig.1  Flow diagram of multi-bed VPSA process
Fig.2  Flow diagram of membrane separation process
Component CO CO2 H2 N2 CH4 O2
Selectivity 0.0147 0.145 1 0.01 0.0099 0.0324
Tab.2  The selectivity of each component relative to H2
Fig.3  Flow diagrams of two PSA/membrane hybrid processes
Process gas Composition CO CO2 H2 N2 CH4 O2 Total
Feed gas v-% 1.12 31.61 62.57 4.33 0.37 0 100
Nm3/h 52281
Product gas v-% 0.00 0.01 99.98 0.01 0.00 0 100
Nm3/h 21267
Desorption gas v-% 1.89 53.28 36.91 7.29 0.62 0 100
Nm3/h 31014
Tab.3  Mass balance of one-stage 5-bed 2-PE VPSA process
Process gas Composition CO CO2 H2 N2 CH4 O2 Total
Feed gas v-% 1.12 31.61 62.57 4.33 0.37 0 100
Nm3/h 52281
Product gas v-% <5 ppm <10 ppm 99.50 0.40 0.10 0 100
Nm3/h 30001
Desorption gas v-% 8.24 15.15 42.98 31.36 2.27 0 100
Nm3/h 6568
Tab.4  Mass balance of two-stage 10-bed 5-PE VPSA process
Process gas Composition CO CO2 H2 N2 CH4 O2 Total
Feed gas v-% 1.12 31.61 62.57 4.33 0.37 0 100
Nm3/h 52281
Product gas v-% 0.10 19.24 80.39 0.26 0.02 0 100
Nm3/h 37931
Exhaust gas v-% 3.83 64.32 15.46 15.10 1.29 0 100
Nm3/h 14350
Tab.5  Mass balance of membrane separation process
Process gas Composition CO CO2 H2 N2 CH4 O2 Total
Feed gas v-% 1.12 31.61 62.57 4.33 0.37 0 100
Nm3/h 52281
Product gas v-% 0.00 0.01 99.98 0.01 0.00 0 100
Nm3/h 30001
Exhaust gas v-% 2.63 74.16 12.19 10.15 0.87 0 100
Nm3/h 22280
Tab.6  Mass balance of PSA-membrane hybrid process
Fig.4  Operation conditions of PSA-membrane hybrid process
Process gas Composition CO CO2 H2 N2 CH4 O2 Total
Feed gas v-% 1.12 31.61 62.57 4.33 0.37 0 100
Nm3/h 52281
Product gas v-% 0.00 0.01 99.99 0.00 0.00 0 100
Nm3/h 30001
Exhaust gas v-% 2.63 74.17 12.17 10.16 0.87 0 100
Nm3/h 22280
Tab.7  Mass balance of membrane-PSA hybrid process
Fig.5  Operation conditions of membrane-PSA hybrid process
Fig.6  Influence of H2 recovery of membrane separation unit on the total H2 recovery of a hybrid process
Hybrid process Product H2 volume /(Nm3•h–1) Total H2 recovery
PSA-membrane 30870.2 94.35%
membrane-PSA 31756.1 97.06%
Tab.8  Comparison between two PSA/membrane hybrid processes
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