Technical and economic performance assessment of blue hydrogen production using new configuration through modelling and simulation

Steam methane reforming (SMR) is the dominant process for hydrogen production, which produce large amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) as a by-product. To address concerns about carbon emissions, there is an increasing focus on blue hydrogen to mitigate carbon emissions during hydrogen production. However, the commercialization of blue hydrogen production (BHP) is hindered by the challenges of high cost and energy consumption. This study proposes a new configuration to address these challenges, which is characterized by: (a) the use of piperazine (PZ) as a solvent, which has a high CO2 absorption efficiency; (b) a more efficient heat exchange configuration which recovers the waste exergy from flue gas; (c) the advanced flash stripper (AFS) was adopted to reduce the capital cost due to its simpler stripper configuration. In addition, the technical and economic performance of the proposed energy and cost-saving blue hydrogen production (ECSB) process is investigated and compared with the standard SMR process. The detailed models of the SMR process and the post-combustion carbon capture (PCC) process were developed and integrated in Aspen plus® V11. The results of the technical analysis showed that the ECSB process with 30 wt.% PZ achieves a 36.3 % reduction in energy penalty when compared to the standard process with 30 wt.% Monoethanolamine (MEA). The results of the economic analysis showed that the lowest levelized cost of blue hydrogen (LCBH) was achieved by the ECSB process with 30 wt.% PZ. Compared to the BHP process with 30 wt.% MEA, the LCBH was reduced by 19.7 %.