Process aspects of hydrogen production using the Tandem Mirror Reactor

Conference · Wed Oct 08 04:00:00 EDT 1980

OSTI ID:7089170

Galloway, T R

An SO/sub 3/ decomposer design is presented which provides the necessary production of SO/sub 2/ + O/sub 2/ for the thermochemical production of H/sub 2/ using the thermal heat from the blanket of a Tandem Mirror Fusion Reactor. The decomposer is a catalytic, fluidized bed reactor operating at 1050/sup 0/K that contains internal heat exchanger tubes to provide the heat for the highly endothermic SO/sub 3/ decomposition reactor. The conversion per pass is around 55% using either CuO or platinum-based catalysts. We examine the impact on the design of varying the temperature 100/sup 0/C higher or lower than 1050/sup 0/K and we also look at both liquid sodium and helium as the heat transfer medium to carry the heat from the TMR to the decomposer. To drive a H/sub 2/ plant with 15 x 10/sup 6/ sm/sup 3//d there would be around 7 decomposers, 10 m in height and 6 m in diameter, made of Incoloy-800H at $24/kg at a total capital cost of around $50 million - which translates to about 12 cents/GJ of H/sub 2/ produced with conventional economics. Helium-driven units would approximately double the cost in trade for the additional safety isolation.

• Research Organization: California Univ., Livermore (USA). Lawrence Livermore National Lab.
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• OSTI ID: 7089170
• Report Number(s): UCRL-84285; CONF-801011-60
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

08 HYDROGEN
080102* -- Hydrogen-- Production-- Thermochemical Processes
21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
210900 -- Nuclear Power Plants-- Process Heat Reactors-- (-1987)
CHALCOGENIDES
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
CHEMICAL REACTORS
DECOMPOSITION
HYDROGEN PRODUCTION
OXIDES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PROCESS HEAT REACTORS
REACTORS
SULFUR COMPOUNDS
SULFUR OXIDES
SULFUR TRIOXIDE
TEMPERATURE EFFECTS
THERMOCHEMICAL PROCESSES
THERMONUCLEAR REACTORS