Thermodynamic performance analysis and environmental impact assessment of an integrated system for hydrogen and ammonia generation

A novel multigeneration plant that's using natural gas for power, hydrogen, ammonia, and hot water generation, is planned and analyzed, in the current paper. The suggested combined plant integrated with four sub-systems, which are the Brayton cycle, reheat Rankine cycle, the high-temperature steam electrolyzer for hydrogen production, and ammonia synthesis processes. Also, thermodynamic analysis and environmental impact assessment are conducted for the designed plant and sub-systems. Moreover, the sustainability index analysis of this proposed study is conducted. The effects of some important indicators on the performance and on the environmental impact of the modeled system and subprocesses are also studied. According to analyses results, it is noted that the energetic and exergetic efficiencies of the suggested system are 51.83% and 70.27%, respectively, and also the total CO2 emission rate is 11.4 kg/kWh for the integrated plant. Furthermore, the total irreversibility rate is computed as 40007.68 kW, and furthermore, the combustion chamber has a maximum irreversibility rate with 20,033 kW, among the proposed plant components. (C) 2020 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

In this study, a novel multigeneration plant using natural gas for power, hydrogen, ammonia, and hot water generation is planned and analyzed. The proposed integrated plant consists of four sub-systems, with thermodynamic analysis, environmental impact assessment, and sustainability index analysis conducted. The energetic and exergetic efficiencies of the system are 51.83% and 70.27% respectively, with a total CO2 emission rate of 11.4 kg/kWh.