Design of an ion transport membrane reactor for application in fire tube boilers

Mohamed A. Habib and Medhat A. Nemitallah

Energy, 2015, vol. 81, issue C, 787-801

Abstract: A design of an ITM (ion transport membranes) reactor is introduced in a two-pass fire tube boiler furnace to produce steam for power generation toward the ZEPP (zero emission power plant) applications. Oxygen separation, combustion and heat exchange occur in the first pass containing the multiple-units ITM reactor. In the second pass, heat exchange between the combustion gases and the surrounding water at 485 K (Psat = 20 bar) occurs mainly by convection. The emphasis is to extract sufficient oxygen for combustion while maintaining the reactor size as compact as possible. Based on a required power in the range of 5–8 MWe, the fuel and gases flow rates were calculated. Accordingly, the channel width was determined to maximize oxygen permeation flux and keep the viscous pressure drop within a safe range for fixed reactor length of 1.8 m. Three-dimensional simulations were conducted for both counter and co-current flow configurations. Counter-current flow configuration proved its suitability in fire tube boilers for steam generation over the co-current flow configuration. The resultant reactor consists of 12,500 ITM units with a height of 5 m, membrane surface area of 2700 m2 and a total volume of 45.45 m3.

Keywords: Fire tube boiler; Oxy-combustion; Oxygen permeation; ITM reactor; Steam generation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544215000481
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:81:y:2015:i:c:p:787-801

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2015.01.029

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().