Development of the once-through hybrid sulfur process for nuclear hydrogen production

Abstract

The Once through Hybrid Sulfur (Ot HyS) process, proposed in this work produces hydrogen using the same Sulfur dioxide Depolarized water Electrolysis (SDE) process found in the original Hybrid Sulfur cycle (HyS) In the process proposed here the Sulfuric Acid Decomposition (SAD) process in the HyS procedure is replaced with the well established sulfur combustion process First a flow sheet for the Ot HyS process was developed by referring to existing facilities and to the work done by the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) under their reasonable assumptions The process was then simulated using Aspen Plus with appropriate thermodynamic models It was demonstrated that the Ot HyS process has higher net thermal efficiency as well as other advantages over competing benchmark processes The net thermal efficiency of the Ot HyS process is 47 1% (based on LHV) and 55 7% (based on HHV) assuming 33 3% thermal to electric conversion efficiency of a nuclear power plant with no consideration given to the work for the air separation Hydrogen produced through the Ot HyS process would be used as off peak electricity storage to relieve the burden of load following and could help to expand applications of nuclear energy which is regarded as a sustainable development technology (C) 2010 Professor T Nejat Veziroglu Published by Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved