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Energy and exergy optimization of oxidative steam reforming of acetone–butanol–ethanol–water mixture as a renewable source for H2 production via thermodynamic modeling

  • Brajesh Kumar , Shishir Sinha , Shashi Kumar and Surendra Kumar EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: July 5, 2021
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Chemical Product and Process Modeling
From the journal Chemical Product and Process Modeling Volume 17 Issue 6

Abstract

Acetone–butanol–ethanol–water mixture is obtained by fermentation of biomass namely, corncob, wheat straw, sugarbeets, sugarcane, etc. For using the individual components, one alternative is to separate the mixture by distillation, which is costly and energy intensive operation. This paper proposes its other use in available conditions to produce hydrogen fuel by oxidative steam reforming process. For the proposed process, thermodynamic equilibrium modeling has been performed by using non-stoichiometric approach of Gibbs free energy minimization. The compositions of acetone, butanol and ethanol in mixture are 0.33:0.52:0.15 on molar basis. The influence of pressure (1–10 atm), temperature (573–1473 K), steam to ABE mixture molar feed ratio (FABE = 5.5–8.5), and oxygen to ABE mixture molar feed ratio (FOABE = 0.25–1) have been tested by simulations on the yield of products (at equilibrium) namely, H2, CH4, CO2, CO, and carbon as solid. The optimum conditions for maximum production of desired H2, minimization of undesired CH4, and elimination of carbon (solid) formation are T = 973 K, P = 1 atm, FABE = 8.5, and FOABE = 0.25. Under same operating conditions, the maximum generation of H2 is 7.51 on molar basis with negligible carbon formation. The total energy requirement for the process (295.73 kJ/mol), the energy required/mol of hydrogen (39.37 kJ), and thermal efficiency (68.09%) of the reformer have been obtained at same operating conditions. The exergy analysis has also been investigated to measure the work potential of the energy implied in the reforming process.

Keywords: acetone–butanol–ethanol–water mixture; energy; exergy; hydrogen; oxidative steam reforming
Corresponding author: Surendra Kumar, Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, 247667, India, E-mail:

Acknowledgments

We wish to state that Prof. (Mrs.) Shashi left to her heavenly abode in the recent past. We humbly dedicate this research paper to her loving and affectionate memory with profound regards. She was in fact responsible for initiating research in this important research area of ‘Renewable Energy’ in the department.

  1. Author contributions: All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted manuscript and approved submission.

  2. Research funding: None declared.

  3. Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding this article.

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Received: 2020-12-15
Accepted: 2021-06-21
Published Online: 2021-07-05

© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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  2. Research Articles
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  4. Energy and exergy optimization of oxidative steam reforming of acetone–butanol–ethanol–water mixture as a renewable source for H2 production via thermodynamic modeling
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https://doi.org/10.1515/cppm-2020-0116
Keywords for this article
acetone–butanol–ethanol–water mixture; energy; exergy; hydrogen; oxidative steam reforming

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Research Articles
  3. CFD simulation of the ethylbenzene dehydrogenation reaction in the fixed bed reactor with a cylindrical catalyst of various sizes
  4. Energy and exergy optimization of oxidative steam reforming of acetone–butanol–ethanol–water mixture as a renewable source for H2 production via thermodynamic modeling
  5. A novel LSSVM-L Hammerstein model structure for system identification and nonlinear model predictive control of CSTR servo and regulatory control
  6. Environmental and thermodynamic performance assessment of biomass gasification process for hydrogen production in a downdraft gasifier
  7. Modeling of lime production process using artificial neural network
  8. Control of TITO processes using sliding mode controller tuned by ITAE minimizing criterion based Nelder-Mead algorithm
  9. To the problem of forming the equation system for pressure swing adsorption mathematical model
  10. Review
  11. A comparative study of various Smith predictor configurations for industrial delay processes
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