• Journal of Institute of Convergence Technology
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.1-5
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• 2015

SI thermochemical hydrogen production process achieves water splitting into hydrogen and oxygen through three chemical reactions. The process is comprised of three sections and one of them is HI decomposition into $H_2$ and $I_2$ called as Section III. The production of $H_2$ included processes involving EED for concentrating a product stream from Section I. Additionally an $I_2$ crystallization would be considered to reduce burden on EED by removing certain amount of $I_2$ out of a process stream prior to EED. In this study, the current thermodynamic model of SI process was briefly described and the calculation results of the applied Electrolytes NRTL model for phase equilibrium calculations was illustrated for ternary systems of Section III. We calculated temperature and heat duty of an $I_2$ crystallizer and heat duty of heaters using UVa model and heat balance equation of simulation tool. The results were expected to be used as operation information in optimizing HI decomposition process and setting up material balance throughout SI process.

• Journal of Institute of Convergence Technology
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.30-34
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• 2012

The SI thermochemical cycle process accomplishes water splitting through distinctive three chemical reactions. We focused on thermodynamic models applicable to the process. Recently, remarkable models based on the assumed ionic species have been developed to describe highly nonideal behavior on the liquid phase reactions. ElecNRTL models with ionic reactions were proposed in order to provide reliable process simulation results for phase equilibrium calculations in Section II and III. In this study, the current thermodynamic models of SI thermochemical cycle process were briefly described and the calculation results of the applied ElecNRTL models for phase equilibrium calculations were illustrated for binary systems.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2007

Hydrogen and electricity are expected to dominate the world energy system in the long term. The world currently consumes about 50 million metric tons of hydrogen per year, with the bulk of it being consumed by the chemical and refining industries. The demand for hydrogen is expected to increase, especially if the U.S. and other countries shift their energy usage towards a hydrogen economy, with hydrogen consumed as an energy commodity by the transportation, residential and commercial sectors. However, there is strong motivation to not use fossil fuels in the future as a feedstock for hydrogen production, because the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is a byproduct and fossil fuel prices are expected to increase significantly. An advanced reactor technology receiving considerable international interest for both electricity and hydrogen production, is the modular helium reactor (MHR), which is a passively safe concept that has evolved from earlier high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) designs. For hydrogen production, this concept is referred to as the H2-MHR. Two different hydrogen production technologies are being investigated for the H2-MHR; an advanced sulfur-iodine (SI) thermochemical water splitting process and high-temperature electrolysis (HTE). This paper describes pre-conceptual design descriptions and economic evaluations of full-scale, nth-of-a-kind SI-Based and HTE-Based H2-MHR plants. Hydrogen production costs for both types of plants are estimated to be approximately $2 per kilogram.

• Journal of Institute of Convergence Technology
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.19-22
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• 2017

SI process is one of the most advanced thermochemical water splitting cycles enabling mass production of hydrogen without emitting carbon dioxide when coupled to nuclear heat energy. The highest temperature (close to $1000^{\circ}C$) required in SI process is well matched with the outlet temperature of a coolant circulating a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor at around $950^{\circ}C$. In Section 3, some heat exchangers are included to recover heats from process flows at high temperature. In this work, we designed a heat exchanger based on the $1Nm^3/hr$ $H_2$ production capacity using commercial tools for chemical process design.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.139-151
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• 2011

The sulfur-iodine (SI) thermochemical water splitting cycle is one of promising hydrogen production methods from water using high-temperature heat generated from a high temperature gas-cooled nuclear reactor (HTGR). The SI cycle consists of three main units, such as Bunsen reaction, HI decomposition, and $H_2SO_4$ decomposition. The feasibility of continuous operation of a series of subunits for $H_2SO_4$ decomposition was investigated with a bench-scale facility working at ambient pressure. It showed stable and reproducible $H_2SO_4$ decomposition by steadily producing $SO_2$ and $O_2$ corresponding to a capacity of 1 mol/h $H_2$ for 24 hrs.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.459-466
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• 2014

SI Cyclic process is one of the thermochemical hydrogen production processes using iodine and sulfur for producing hydrogen molecules from water. VHTR (Very High Temperature Reactor) can be used to supply heat to hydrogen production process, which is a high temperature nuclear reactor. IHX (Intermediate Heat Exchanger) is necessary to transfer heat to hydrogen production process safely without radioactivity. In this study, the strategy for the optimum design of IHX between SI hydrogen process and VHTR is proposed for various operating pressures of the reactor, and the different cooling fluids. Most economical efficiency of IHX is also proposed along with process conditions.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.386-393
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• 2008

The Sulfur-iodine(SI) thermochemical cycle is one of the most promising methods for massive hydrogen production. For the purpose of continuous operation of SI cycle, phase separation characteristics into two liquid phases ($H_2SO_4$-rich phase and $HI_x$-rich phase) were directly investigated via Bunsen reaction. The experiments for Bunsen reaction were carried out in the temperature range, from 298 to 333 K, and in the $I_2/H_2O$ molar ratio of $0.109{\sim}0.297$ under a continuous flow of $SO_2$ gas. As the results, solubility of $SO_2$, decreased with increasing the temperature, had considerable influence on the global composition in the Bunsen reaction system. The amounts of impurity in each phase(HI and $I_2$ in $H_2SO_4$-rich phase and $H_2SO_4$ in $HI_x$-rich phase) were decreased with increasing $H_2SO_4$ molar ratio and temperature. To control the amounts of impurity in $HI_x$-rich phase, temperature is a factor more important than $I_2/H2_O$ molar ratio. On the other hand, the affinity between $HI_x$ and $H_2O$ was increased with increasing $I_2/H2_O$molar ratio.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.279-286
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• 2020

In this article, we develop a reactive distillation (RD) column configuration for the production of hydrogen. This RD column is in the HI decomposition section of the sulphur - iodine (SI) thermochemical cycle, in which HI decomposition and H₂ separation take place simultaneously. The section plays a major role in high hydrogen production efficiency (that depends on reaction conversion and separation efficiency) of the SI cycle. In the column simulation, the rigorous thermodynamic phase equilibrium and reaction kinetic model are used. The tuning parameters involved in phase equilibrium model are dependent on interactive components and system temperature. For kinetic model, parameter values are adopted from the Aspen flowsheet simulator. Interestingly, there is no side reaction (e.g., solvation reaction, electrolyte decomposition and polyiodide formation) considered aiming to make the proposed model simple that leads to a challenging prediction. The process parameters are determined on the basis of optimal hydrogen production as reflux ratio = 0.87, total number of stages = 19 and feeding point at 8th stage. With this, the column operates at a reasonably low pressure (i.e., 8 bar) and produces hydrogen in the distillate with a desired composition (H₂ = 9.18 mol%, H₂O = 88.27 mol% and HI = 2.54 mol%). Finally, the results are compared with other model simulations. It is observed that the proposed scheme leads to consume a reasonably low energy requirement of 327 MJ/kmol of H₂.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.13-21
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• 2016

The Sulfur-Iodine thermochemical hydrogen production process (SI process) consists of the Bunsen reaction section, the $H_2SO_4$ decomposition section, and the HI decomposition section. The $HI_x$ solution ($I_2-HI-H_2O$) could be recycled to Bunsen reaction section from the HI decomposition section in the operation of the integrated SI process. The phase separation characteristic of the Bunsen reaction using the $HI_x$ solution was similar to that of $I_2-H_2O-SO_2$ system. On the other hands, the amount of produced $H_2SO_4$ phase was small. To investigate the effects of $SO_2$ solubility on Bunsen reaction, the continuous Bunsen reaction was performed at variation of the amounts of $SO_2$ gas. Also, it was carried out to make sure of the effects of partial pressure of $SO_2$ in the condition of 3bar of $SO_2-O_2$ atmosphere. As the results, the characteristic of Bunsen reaction was improved with increasing the amounts and solubility of $SO_2$ gas. The concentration of Bunsen products was changed by reverse Bunsen reaction and evaporation of HI after 12 h.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.52 no.6
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• pp.768-774
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• 2014

SI process is a thermochemical process producing hydrogen by decomposing water while recycling sulfur and iodine. Various technologies have been developed to improve the efficiency on Section III of SI process, where iodine is separated and recycled. EED(electro-electrodialysis) could increase the efficiency of Section III without additional chemical compounds but a substantial amount of $I_2$ from a process stream is loaded on EED. In order to reduce the load, a crystallization technology prior to EED is considered as an $I_2$ removal process. In this work, $I_2$ particle sinking behavior was modeled to secure basic data for designing an $I_2$ crystallizer applied to $I_2$-saturated $HI_x$ solutions. The composition of $HI_x$ solution was determined by thermodynamic UVa model and correlation equations and pure properties were used to evaluate the solution properties. A multiphysics computational tool was utilized to calculate particle sinking velocity changes with respect to $I_2$ particle radius and temperature. The terminal velocity of an $I_2$ particle was estimated around 0.5 m/s under considered radius (1.0 to 2.5 mm) and temperature (10 to $50^{\circ}C$) ranges and it was analyzed that the velocity is more dependent on the solution density than the solution viscosity.