Commercial-Scale Performance Predictions for High-Temperature Electrolysis Plants Coupled to Three Advanced Reactor Types

Technical Report · Sat Sep 01 04:00:00 EDT 2007

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/926349· OSTI ID:926349

McKellar, M G; O'Brien, J E; Herring, J S

This report presents results of system analyses that have been developed to assess the hydrogen production performance of commercial-scale high-temperature electrolysis (HTE) plants driven by three different advanced reactor – power-cycle combinations: a high-temperature helium cooled reactor coupled to a direct Brayton power cycle, a supercritical CO2-cooled reactor coupled to a direct recompression cycle, and a sodium-cooled fast reactor coupled to a Rankine cycle. The system analyses were performed using UniSim software. The work described in this report represents a refinement of previous analyses in that the process flow diagrams include realistic representations of the three advanced reactors directly coupled to the power cycles and integrated with the high-temperature electrolysis process loops. In addition, this report includes parametric studies in which the performance of each HTE concept is determined over a wide range of operating conditions. Results of the study indicate that overall thermal-to- hydrogen production efficiencies (based on the low heating value of the produced hydrogen) in the 45 - 50% range can be achieved at reasonable production rates with the high-temperature helium cooled reactor concept, 42 - 44% with the supercritical CO2-cooled reactor and about 33 - 34% with the sodium-cooled reactor.

• Research Organization: Idaho National Laboratory (INL)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE - NE
• DOE Contract Number: AC07-99ID13727
• OSTI ID: 926349
• Report Number(s): INL/EXT-07-13575
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

08 HYDROGEN
advanced reactors
commercial scale
hydrogen
nuclear