A Computational Fluid Dynamic Model for the Simulation of Hydrogen Separation using Palladium Based Solid Membranes.

Many global issues in recent decades have been raised from fossil fuel based economy. This resulted in rising energy prices and climate change. Accordingly, Emphasis has been directed to developing sustainable and green energy systems in order to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels. A great potential for solving this problem was found to be the hydrogen based economy. Focussed research activities are created for the optimization means of producing hydrogen from other fossil fuels and renewable energy sources. The technology of pure hydrogen production has many applications such as fuel cell industry, combustion in internal combustion engines, etc. Hydrogen can be easily produced using different technologies such as steam reforming, pressure swing adsorption, cryogenic distillation and water splitting. Hydrogen can be extracted from a mixture of gaseous compounds. One of the recent advanced techniques for hydrogen production is the use of dense metal membranes. These membranes provide new methods that assure energy efficiency and highly selectivity as well as high purity levels in the field of hydrogen separation from a hot gas mixture. In operation, membranes for gas separation applications can be applied to provide substantial energy-efficient as well as compact systems. Simultaneously, it is vital to establish mathematical models for the prediction of the performance of the process design and optimization of these membranes. Different numerical models of the membrane modules have been considered in the literature for the gas separation. These numerical models vary from being simplified approaches, usually analytical solutions, to extra complicated studies. In these complex methods, the shapes of the different flow properties such as flow field, thermal field and species concentrations along the module are precisely described by joined governing partial differential equations. The main objective of the proposed project is to develop a detailed computational fluid dynamic model capable of accurately simulating hydrogen separation using palladium based solid membranes. Code development using UDF and coupling with Fluent will be performed. The developed model will be validated utilizing available experimental data. This study aims at developing a palladium based membrane model model based on experimental data to be implemented in CFD. It also aims to develop a CFD model to simulate the detailed species transport for H2 separation from typical feeds (syngas) and to carry out CFD simulations to evaluate the effect of major operating factors on H2 separation.