Clean hydrogen production via sorption enhanced water gas shift reaction: A comprehensive review

The development of efficient and economical technology for clean hydrogen production is a significant research challenge to secure future clean energy demands. In this context, the sorption-enhanced water gas shift (SEWGS) process, identified as a potential approach to in-situ CO₂ capture and enhancing CO conversion to increase H₂ yield. However, the commercial development of the SEWGS process faces technical challenges, primarliy in ensuring the stability and efficiency of sorbent-catalyst systems and optimizing reactor and process design for economic feasibility. This comprehensive review thoroughly explores the fundamental concepts of WGS and SEWGS systems, recent advancements in the development of sorbents, sorbent-catalyst bifunctional materials and advanced reactor designs critical to the SEWGS process. The review also discusses the kinetics and thermodynamics of WGS and SEWGS systems, the development of magnesium and hydrotalcite-based sorbents and bifunctional materials tailored for SEWGS system. Additionally, the review explores modelling aspects including density functional theory (DFT), computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and the design and modelling of advanced reactors. A brief economic assessment of the sorption enhanced processes (SEP) is also presented, emphasizing its potential and technical challenges that must be addressed for commercialization.