A novel method about nuclear hydrogen production by methanol steam reforming for Small Modular Reactor (SMR)

Abstract

Hydrogen is an important vector for industry as well as a fuel energy carrier. Nuclear hydrogen production offers distinct advantages, including low carbon emissions and high yield. Among nuclear technologies, Small Modular Reactor (SMR) stands out due to the feature like flexible deployment, short construction period, and enhanced safety features. Hence, hydrogen production using SMR could broaden its application scope and improve its economy viability. However, the output temperature of SMR, such as ACP100, is about 230 °C to 260 °C. The traditional method of hydrogen production using SMR is water electrolysis, which has low efficiency as compared to thermochemical method. Methanol Steam Reforming (MSR) for hydrogen production could work in the range of 180°C to 320°C, which matches the range of the output temperature of SMR. In this work, two kinds of hydrogen production systems by MSR using SMR were developed. Parameter sensitivity analysis of the systems, and the optimal reaction conditions were discussed. These results show that the suggested values of reaction temperature range, reforming pressure, and water-to-methanol mass ratio are 240 °C to 250 °C, 1.1 MPa, and 0.6 to 0.63, respectively. Then, MSR and water electrolysis using SMR were compared in terms of economics, which shows that the MSR (with an average hydrogen production cost of 0.30 US $/Nm³ H₂) is more economical than water electrolysis (with an average hydrogen production cost of 0.49 US $/Nm³ H₂). This work provides a new method of hydrogen production using SMR, which could highly improve its integrated applications.