Performance Assessment of Water Gas Shift Membrane Reactors by a Two-dimensional Model

There is currently a large world effort towards developing hydrogen power as the next generation of clean energy for both the transportation and the electricity sectors. Water gas shift is a thermodynamically limited reaction, which has to operate at low temperatures, reducing kinetics rate, and increasing the amount of catalyst required to reach valuable carbon monoxide conversions. It has been widely demonstrated that the integration of hydrogen selective membranes is a promising way to enhance water gas shift reactors performance: a Pd-based membrane reactor operated successfully overcoming the thermodynamic constraints of a traditional reactor thanks to the removal of hydrogen from the reaction environment. In this work, the effect of hydrogen removal in membrane water gas shift reactors will be investigated by a two-dimensional, non-isothermal model in order to analyze the water gas shift reactor performance. In particular, the effects on the reactor performance of the gas space hourly velocity, reactor temperature, pressure difference, sweeping gas flow rate, and inlet flow rate composition have been deeply assessed.