Executive Summary : | Steam reforming of natural gas is an established commercial technology and the process is still the main route for large-scale hydrogen production, majorly using nickel-based catalysts at harsh operating conditions (800–900 °C temp. and pressure of ~ 30 atm The drawbacks of this process are its high endothermicity and high carbon footprint along with the poor stability of catalyst due to carbon formation. Sorption enhanced steam methane reforming (SE-SMR) an intensified SMR process is found to be one of the emerging concepts that can achieve the sustainable and energy efficient process intensification. SE-SMR facilitates in situ CO2 capture by a solid sorbent, there by producing high-purity H2. There exists a need to design and develop hybrid bi functional materials that can exhibit combined methane catalytic activity and CO2 capture ability for implementation in SE-SMR at commercial scale and making it more affordable. Recent studies on SE-SMR, have reported that, compared to physical mixing of catalyst and sorbent materials, favorable results have been obtained with hybrid materials or bifunctional materials (BFs) in to a single particle. Further, recent studies have also shown that using BFs materials (incorporation of second metal/element into the catalyst composition) as catalyst have shown better performance in terms of stability and selectivity. However, SE-SMR process is still at a lab and conceptual level, demanding more investigations to take the process to pilot scale. Importantly, the establishing catalytic and sorption sites on BFs is a fundamental step towards the improvement of SE-SMR reactions. Hence, this project proposal aims at Ab Initio (first principles) based investigations integrated with machine learning (ML) methods to identify best compositions of BFs wherein carbon formation and other annihilation reactions are minimized for in situ removal of CO2, which inherently reduces the energy needs by avoiding the separation process and leads to process intensification. The project is led by the team having expertise in interdisciplinary research domains and has established infrastructure necessary for the innovative design, research and development. Tailoring the BFs with judiciously chosen abundant metals/elements at molecular level that are pracitally possible to synthesize through cost-effective routes is the innovative approach for the development of efficient and sustainable materials. |
Co-PI: | Dr. Nakka Lingaiah, CSIR - Indian Institute Of Chemical Technology, Secunderabad, Telangana-500007, Dr. Sumana Chenna, CSIR - Indian Institute Of Chemical Technology, Secunderabad, Telangana-500007 |