Simulation and optimization of hydrogen production from autothermal reforming of ethane for fuel cell applications

Abstract

Hydrogen fuel cell technologies have emerged as a promising future global energy. The technology called ‘hydrogen economy’ is a vision for future in with hydrogen replaced fossil fuels to reduce dependence on non-renewable energy and to cut down the environmentally harmful emissions. For this technology, hydrogen is mostly produced from hydrocarbons. Therefore, many researches have been conducted on hydrogen production from hydrocarbons to find the most economical, efficient and practical method of producing hydrogen for the fuel cell application. On this research we developed a simulation plant model using autothermal reforming reactor to produced hydrogen from ethane for fuel cell application. From the simulation plant model, we made an analysis on the behaviour of the process and determined the best condition of producing hydrogen from ethane. This research was carried out using computational tools, which is Aspen HYSYS 2004.1. Aspen HYSYS 2004.1 provides a simulation plant model of hydrogen production from ethane and allow us to study and analyze the process directly, by manipulating the process variable and unit operation topology. There are five steps to be follow in order to develop and analyze the simulation plant model, begin with base case development, base case validation, followed by ATR optimization, carbon monoxide clean up and finally the plant wide optimization. The results shown that optimum ratios of air/fuel and steam/fuel are 5.12 and 3.0, respectively to produce 40.26% hydrogen and CO less then 10 ppm with 82.07% fuel processor efficiency.