Membrane and desublimation integrated hydrogen separation followed by liquefaction process: An energy, exergy, and economic evaluation

Abstract

H2 has gained global attention owing to its clean energy characteristics. As an energy vector, long-term storage and transportation of H2 in liquid form is essential which requires effective pretreatment. Standalone technologies, such as pressure swing adsorption, membrane, and cryogenic, cannot produce highly pure H2 with high recovery in an energy-efficient manner. The integration of technologies is a promising alternative to overcome these limitations. In this regard, membrane and cryogenic (desublimation) techniques are integrated to separate H2 with high purity and recovery. Purified H2 is liquefied to produce 100% saturated liquid H2 (LH2). The proposed process is designed in Aspen Hysys v11 and evaluated with respect to energy, exergy, and economic considerations. The results have shown that the proposed process resulted in H2 separation with 99.99% purity and 95.87% recovery. The total net energy consumption of the proposed integrated process was 11.53 kWh/kg. Exergy analysis revealed that the liquefaction section had the highest specific exergy destruction (∼92%). Moreover, the detailed economic calculations showed that the total annualized process cost was 671.6 m$/y. In this study, the potential of membrane–cryogenic integration with LH2 production is evaluated and shown to be fundamental in the development of a sustainable H2 economy.