The operating characteristics of hydrogen iodide (HI) decomposition for hydrogen production were investigated using the commercial computational fluid dynamics code, and various factors, such as hydrogen production, heat of reaction, and temperature distribution, were studied to compare device performance with that expected for device development. Hydrogen production increased with an increase of the surface-to-volume (STV) ratio.
N u c l E n g T e c h n o l ( ) 4 e4 3 Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect journal homepage: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/nuclearengineering-and-technology/ Original Article TWO-DIMENSIONAL SIMULATION OF HYDROGEN IODIDE DECOMPOSITION REACTION USING FLUENT CODE FOR HYDROGEN PRODUCTION USING NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY JUNG-SIK CHOI a, YOUNG-JOON SHIN b, KI-YOUNG LEE b, and JAE-HYUK CHOI c,* a The Institute of Machinery and Electronic Technology, Mokpo National Maritime University, 91 Haeyangdaehak-ro, Mokpo-si, Jeollanam-do, South Korea b Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Daedeok-Daero 989-111, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, South Korea c Division of Marine Engineering System, Korea Maritime and Ocean University, 727 Taejong-ro, Yeongdo-gu, Busan, South Korea article info abstract Article history: The operating characteristics of hydrogen iodide (HI) decomposition for hydrogen pro- Received October 2014 duction were investigated using the commercial computational fluid dynamics code, and Received in revised form various factors, such as hydrogen production, heat of reaction, and temperature distribu- January 2015 tion, were studied to compare device performance with that expected for device devel- Accepted 24 January 2015 opment Hydrogen production increased with an increase of the surface-to-volume (STV) Available online 27 March 2015 ratio With an increase of hydrogen production, the reaction heat increased The internal pressure and velocity of the HI decomposer were estimated through pressure drop and Keywords: reducing velocity from the preheating zone The mass of H2O was independent of the STV Computational fluid dynamics Fluent code Hydrogen iodide decomposition reaction Hydrogen production Sulfureiodine cycle ratio, whereas that of HI decreased with increasing STV ratio Copyright © 2015, Published by Elsevier Korea LLC on behalf of Korean Nuclear Society Introduction Hydrogen not only has potential for use as an alternative to fossil fuels, but also plays a key role in solving what is known as a trilemma (economic growth, energy use, and environmental degradation) [1] A number of thermochemical cycles were first postulated by Funk and Reinstrom [2] as the most efficient way to produce fuels (e.g., hydrogen, ammonia) from stable and abundant species (e.g., water, nitrogen) using heat sources 2H2O þ SO2 þ I2 / H2SO4 þ 2HI * Corresponding author E-mail address: choi_jh@kmou.ac.kr (J.-H Choi) This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.net.2015.01.006 1738-5733/Copyright © 2015, Published by Elsevier Korea LLC on behalf of Korean Nuclear Society N u c l E n g T e c h n o l ( ) 4 e4 3 2HI / H2 þ I2 H2SO4 / H2O þ SO2 þ 1/2 O2 In a closed cycle system, various related processes have been proposed and have received a great deal of attention The sulfureiodine (SI) process involving thermochemical hydrogen production using nuclear energy was proposed by General Atomics and this technology has been studied by many researchers [3e5] Extensive research on hydrogen iodide (HI) decomposition for hydrogen production has been carried out for experimental verification and measurement of several factors, such as conversion efficiency and kinetics [6] The decomposition of HI is the key to producing hydrogen in the SI cycle The decomposition of HI in the absence of any catalysts is not efficient even at 773.15 K; therefore, catalysts have been used to promote this reaction [7] Moreover, the rate of the homogeneous gas-phase reaction is considerably low at temperatures