Theoretical Performance Evaluation of Inorganic (Non Pd-Based) Membranes for Hydrogen Separation

The aim of this work theoretical study is to theoretically investigate a inorganic membrane assisted purifcation process of an H2-rich stream derived from a conventional methanol steam reforming stage. In particular, a black-box model for multicomponent gas mixture purifcation is developed to evaluate the H2 separation performance of such non-palladium based membranes such as silica, polymeric and carbon membranes, by varying design and processing variables such as stage cut and feed pressure. The most signifcant modeling result is achieved by using a silica membrane based separation module in which 98% of H2 purity and 0.3% of carbon monoxide in the permeate side are reached, operating with a transmembrane pressure of 4.0 bar.