• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.111-122
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• 2007

The current energy supply system is burdened by environmental and supply problems. The concept of a hydrogen economy has been actively discussed worldwide. KAERI has set up a plan to demonstrate massive production of hydrogen using a VHTR by the early 2020s. The technological gap to meet this goal was identified during the past few years. The hydrogen production process, a process heat exchanger, the efficiency of an I/S thermochemical cycle, the manufacturing of components, the analysis tools of VHTR, and a coated particle fuel are key areas that require urgent development. Candidate NHDD plant designs based on a 200 MWth VHTR core and I/S thermochemical process have been studied and some of analysis results are presented in this paper.

• 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.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.204-213
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• 2002

In this work, hydrogen production by a 2-step water-spritting thermochemical cycle based on metal oxides redox pairs was investigated on the bases of the thermodynamics and technical feasibility. Also, a 2nd-law analysis performed on the closed cyclic process indicates a maximum exergy conversion efficiency of 7.1% when using a solar cavity-receiver operated at 2300K and air/Fe3O4 molar ratio = 10.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.15 no.2 s.46
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• pp.107-117
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• 2006

The status of water splitting thermochemical cycle for hydrogen production was reviewed in this article. Mass production of hydrogen could be possible using the thermochemical process which is similar to the concept of conventional chemical reaction system if the high temperature heat source is available. The mediators (chemicals and reagents) should be used to split chemically stable water, and should be recycled in a closed cycle in order to be environmentally acceptable. Though there is no process to reach commercial stage, IS cycle, two-step cycles based on metallic oxide such as ZnO/Zn, $Fe_3O_4/FeO$ and the associated cycles are attracted due to their possibilities of application. Development of materials for high temperature and/or corrosive conditions during thermochemical process is still important topic in some thermochemical processes.

• 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.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.32-38
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• 2004

Thermal behaviors of $(Cu_{0.5}Mn_{0.5})Fe_2O_4$, prepared by a solid method, were investigated for $H_2$ production by a thermochemical cycle. The thermal reduction of $(Cu_{0.5}Mn_{0.5})Fe_2O_4$ started from $300^\circ{C}$ and the weight loss was 1.3 wt% up to 1200. XRD shows the prepared ferrite has the spinel structure with a lattice constant of $8.414{\AA}$ and changed to the oxygen deficient structure by thermal reduction. Oxygen and hydrogen can be separately produced by the cycles of thermal reduction and water oxidation of the oxygen deficient ferrite.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.15 no.2 s.46
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• pp.127-137
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• 2006

To resolve the environmental and economics problems of fossil fuel energy, a hydrogen economy is promoted in many developed countries. Massive production of hydrogen using a nuclear power is a practical way to feed fuel required for the hydrogen economy. The author introduces a very high temperature reactor and its development status. He also reviews recent achievements and directions of research in hydrogen production process, such as sulfur-iodine thermochemical cycle, sulfur hybrid cycle, and high temperature electrolysis.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.13-22
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• 2017

Two-step water splitting thermochemical cycle with $CeO_2/ZrO_2$ foam device was investigated by using a solar simulator composed of 2.5 kW Xe-Arc lamp and mirror reflector. The hydrogen production of $CeO_2/ZrO_2$ foam device depending on heat recovery of Thermal-Reduction step and Water-Decomposition step was analyzed, and the hydrogen production of $CeO_2/ZrO_2$ and $NiFe_2O_4/ZrO_2$ foam devices was compared. Resultantly, the quantity of hydrogen generation increased by 52.02% when the carrier gas of Thermal-Reduction step is preheated to $200^{\circ}C$ and, when the $N_2/steam$ is preheated to $200^{\circ}C$ in the Water-Decomposition step, the quantity of hydrogen generation increased by 35.85%. Therefore, it is important to retrieve the heat from the highly heated gases discharged from each of the reaction spaces in order to increase the reaction temperature of each of the stages and thereby increasing the quantity of hydrogen generated through this.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.226-231
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• 2008

Cu/Fe/$Al_2O_3$ granules with various sizes have been prepared by a combination of sol-gel and oil drop method for the use in sulfur trioxide decomposition, a subcycle in thermochemical sulfur-iodine cycle to split water in the hydrogen and oxygen. The size of composite granules have been mainly changed by the flow-rate of the gel mixture before dropping in the synthesis. The structural properties of the samples were comparable with granule size. In the reaction, the catalytic activity was enhanced by decreasing size in the entire reaction temperature ranges.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.13-16
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• 2006

Electro-electrodialysis (EED) experiments were carried out for the HI concentration from HIx $(HI-H_2O-I_2)$ solution to improve the Hl decomposition reaction in the thermochemical water-splitting is (iodine-Sulfur) process. EED cell is composed of the collector electrode and electrolyte. Nafion 117 which was cation exchange membrane used as an electrolyte, and the activated carbon cloth used as an electrode. The HI concentration experiment was carried out using the HIx solution and molar ratio of the $I_2$ were varied from 1 to 3 mole. The cell voltages were decreased as temperature increase. And, membrane properties such as transport number of proton and electro-osmosis coefficient were decreased as temperature increase