Techno-economic feasibility analysis on carbon membranes for hydrogen purification

H-2 production from a biomass fermentation process provides a great opportunity for green and sustain ability economy compared to use fossil fuels (e.g., steam methane reforming process), but the process usually produces a humidified gas containing 35-65 (vol.%) H-2 and 40-50 (vol.%) CO2. A novel, energy efficient two-stage carbon membrane system for H-2 purification based on the combination of H-2 selective carbon molecular sieve membranes in the first stage and CO2 selective carbon membranes in the second stage was proposed. The concept is the first unique technology providing a low H-2 purification cost < 1 $/kg H-2 produced at a feed pressure of 20 bara based on process simulation and cost estimation. The produced high purity CO2 (> 95 vol.%) and H-2 (> 99.5 vol.%) can be integrated into a gasification reformer and Fischer-Tropsch reactors to improve the biodiesel productivity from biomass. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.