Pre-combustion Carbon Dioxide Capture by a New Dual Phase Ceramic Carbonate Membrane Reactor

Pre-combustion Carbon Dioxide Capture by a New Dual Phase Ceramic Carbonate Membrane Reactor Pre-combustion Carbon Dioxide Capture by a New Dual Phase Ceramic Carbonate Membrane Reactor This project is aimed at the development of a new high temperature carbon dioxide perm-selective membrane reactor for water-gas-shift reaction for production of a high purity hydrogen stream and pre-combustion capture of carbon dioxide. The membrane reactor is made of a chemically/thermally stable, carbon dioxide semi-permeable dual-phase ceramiccarbonate membrane consisting of a continuous thin (1-3 m) mesoporous oxygen ionic conducting ceramic layer filled with a molten carbonate, supported on stainless support with a submicron-sized porous intermediate layer of the same oxygen ionic conducting material. The membranes will have high carbon dioxide perm-selectivity [CO2/ H2 (or CO and H2O) over 500)] and permeance (>5x10-7 mol/m2.s.Pa), good thermal stability, and strong chemical resistance against poisoning for application in water-gas-shift reaction. The membrane reactor operates at high temperatures (450-600oC) producing a hot hydrogen stream allowing its hydrogen sulfur impurity readily removed by high temperature zinc oxide based sorbents. The project is focused on synthesis and property study of the new dual-phase membrane, as well as experimental and modeling studies of water-gas-shift reaction in the dual-phase membrane reactor for hydrogen production and carbon dioxide capture. The goal is to identify experimental conditions for the water-gas-shift reaction in the dual-phase membrane reactor that will produce the hydrogen and carbon dioxide streams with 93% and 95% purity, respectively.