Nuclear Production of Hydrogen Using Thermochemical Water-Splitting Cycles

Conference · Mon Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2002

OSTI ID:21167946

Brown, L C; Besenbruch, G E; Schultz, K R ^[1]; Marshall, A C; Showalter, S K; Pickard, P S ^[2]; Funk, J F ^[3]

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1. General Atomics, P.O. Box 85608, San Diego, California 92186-5608 (United States)
2. Sandia National Laboratories, PO Box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185 (United States)
3. University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506 (United States)

The purpose of this work is to determine the potential for efficient, cost-effective, large-scale production of hydrogen utilizing high-temperature heat from an advanced nuclear power station in a thermochemical water-splitting cycle. We carried out a detailed literature search to create a searchable database with 115 cycles and 822 references. We developed screening criteria to reduce the list to 25 cycles. We used detailed evaluation to select two cycles that appear most promising, the Adiabatic UT-3 cycle and the Sulfur-Iodine cycle. We have selected the Sulfur-Iodine thermochemical water-splitting cycle for further development. We then assessed the suitability of various nuclear reactor types to the production of hydrogen from water using the Sulfur-Iodine cycle. A basic requirement is to deliver heat to the process interface heat exchanger at temperatures up to 900 deg. C. We considered nine categories of reactors: pressurized water-cooled, boiling water-cooled, organic-cooled, alkali metal-cooled, heavy metal-cooled, gas-cooled, molten salt-cooled, liquid-core and gas-core reactors. We developed requirements and criteria to carry out the assessment, considering design, safety, operational, economic and development issues. This assessment process led to our choice of the helium gas-cooled reactor for coupling to the Sulfur-Iodine cycle. In continuing work, we are investigating the improvements that have been proposed to the Sulfur-Iodine cycle and will generate an integrated flowsheet describing a hydrogen production plant powered by a high-temperature helium gas-cooled nuclear reactor. This will allow us to size process equipment and calculate hydrogen production efficiency and capital cost, and to estimate the cost of the hydrogen produced as a function of nuclear reactor cost. (authors)

• Research Organization: American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
• OSTI ID: 21167946
• Resource Relation: Conference: ICAPP'02: 2002 International congress on advances in nuclear power plants, Hollywood, FL (United States), 9-13 Jun 2002; Other Information: Country of input: France; 27 refs
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
ALKALI METALS
BWR TYPE REACTORS
CAPITALIZED COST
GAS COOLED REACTORS
HEAT
HEAT EXCHANGERS
HEAVY METALS
HELIUM
HYDROGEN
HYDROGEN PRODUCTION
IODINE
LIQUID METAL COOLED REACTORS
MOLTEN SALT COOLED REACTORS
MOLTEN SALTS
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS
PWR TYPE REACTORS
REACTOR CORES
SULFUR
WATER