Facilitated transport membranes for H2 purification from coal-derived syngas: A techno-economic analysis

A single-stage membrane process has been designed for using facilitated transport membranes (FTMs) to decarbonize the coal-derived syngas from an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plant. The necessary process model and costing method have also been developed to assess the technical feasibility and process economics. In order to account for the carrier saturation phenomenon associated with FTMs, a homogeneous reactive diffusion model is integrated into the process model. The techno-economic study reveals that the mitigated carrier saturation upon bulk CO2 removal can lead to appreciable increases in the CO2 permeance and CO2/H2 selectivity, which can be utilized to achieve 95% CO2 purity and 95% H2 recovery with a CO2/H2 selectivity of 50 at the complete carrier saturation. FTMs with different facilitated transport characteristics can also be arranged in a hybrid membrane configuration to render a H2 recovery of 99% and a cost of electricity of $118.5/MWh, which is 12.5% lower than that of the benchmark Selexol process.

Automated summary

A single-stage membrane process using facilitated transport membranes has been designed to decarbonize coal-derived syngas, with a reactive diffusion model integrated to address carrier saturation. The study found that mitigated carrier saturation can significantly enhance CO2 permeance and selectivity, achieving high CO2 purity and H2 recovery. Furthermore, a hybrid membrane configuration with different FTMs characteristics can further improve H2 recovery and decrease the cost of electricity compared to the benchmark Selexol process.