CARBON NEUTRALIZATION OF A COAL-TO-LIQUIDS PLANT UTILIZING SOLID OXIDE ELECTROLYSIS FOR HYDROGEN PRODUCTION
Open Access
- Author:
- O'Sullivan, Liam Daniel
- Area of Honors:
- Energy Engineering
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Dr. Harold Harris Schobert, Thesis Supervisor
Dr. Harold Harris Schobert, Thesis Supervisor
Sarma V Pisupati, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- SOEC
CTL
solid oxide electrolysis - Abstract:
- Coal to liquid (CTL) technology has to potential to help decrease America’s foreign energy demand for liquid transportation fuels. However, no large-scale refinery will be built in the United States without first proving itself to be carbon neutral in its operations. Due to coal’s relatively high sulfur content, hydroprocessing is a very important part of operations. H2 is a vital part of many industrial applications. However, H2 does not occur naturally and must be liberated from other compounds. The current method of H2 production is steam reforming of methane, but that requires the extraction of methane through drilling operations and produces a large quantity of CO, which is subsequently converted to CO2 via water gas shift. A growing environmental consciousness has led to a need for a low-emission substitute to steam reforming. Solid oxide electrolysis offers a high-efficiency alternative that also has the capability to utilize captured CO2 as a reactant. Due to the ceramic electrolyte in a solid oxide electrolytic cell (SOEC), it can be run at high temperatures; this allows for coelectrolysis of H2O and CO2. This study aims to test the cell efficiency and H2 production as a function of temperature. The results from this study show that cell efficiency and H2 production not only increase with temperature, but increase at a greater-than-linear rate. Future work will include an introduction of CO2 to the feed stream to determine percent conversion of CO2 to CO, which may be used in either a water gas shift reactor or be used to synthesize other fuels.