Performance and economics of a Pd-based planar WGS membrane reactor for coal gasification

Conceptual 300 tonne per day (tpd) H₂-from-coal plants have been the subject of several major costing exercises in the past decade. Incorporating conventional high- and low-temperature water-gas-shift (WGS) reactors, amine-based CO₂ removal and PSA-based H₂ purification systems, these studies provide a benchmark against which alternative H₂-from-coal technologies can be compared. The catalytic membrane reactor (CMR), combining a WGS catalyst and hydrogen-selective metal membrane, can potentially replace the multiple shift and separation stages of a plant based on conventional technology. CMR-based shift and separation offers several major advantages over the conventional approach, including greater-than-equilibrium WGS conversion, the containment of the CO₂ at high-pressure and a reduction in the number of unit processes.