Thermal management of the thermochemical Cu-Cl cycle linked with industrial processes for hydrogen production

Abstract

This thesis study develops, analyzes and evaluates three integrated systems using process heats available in industrial applications for hydrogen production via copper-chlorine (Cu-Cl) cycle. The first system consists of single- and multi-stage reheat Rankine cycles, a four-step thermochemical Cu-Cl cycle, and a hydrogen compression system. Systems 2 consists of a thermochemical four-step hydrogen production Cu-Cl cycle, a hydrogen compression system and a multi-stage reheat Rankine cycle. System 3 contains single- and multi-stage reheat Rankine cycles, a thermochemical hydrogen production Cu-Cl cycle, a hydrogen compression system and a reverse osmosis desalination unit. Both Aspen Plus and Engineering Equation Solver software packages are employed for system analysis, modeling and performance assessment. The overall system energy and exergy efficiencies are found to be 39.8% and 40.5% for the first system, 32.7% and 32% for the second system, and 48.6% and 40.2% for the third system.