Cogeneration of electricity and hydrogen based on modular high temperature gas-cooled reactor and Cu-Cl cycle

Copper-chlorine (Cu-Cl) cycle is a widely studied hydrogen production process in the world recently, which requires a maximum temperature of around 600°C. Nuclear steam supply systems (NSSSs) based on the modular high temperature gas-cooled reactor (MHTGR) can provide high quality steam, which is compatible with that of Cu-Cl cycle. In this paper, a dynamic model of Cu-Cl cycle for hydrogen production is first given, and a scheme of combining a multi-modular MHTGR plant with the Cu-Cl cycle is proposed for cogeneration. The dynamic model of Cu-Cl cycle is implemented on Matlab/Simulink platform with interconnection to the dynamical model of a six-modular MHTGR plant. Then, numerical simulation experiments are performed, whose results show the feasibility of cogenerating electricity and hydrogen based on MHTGR and Cu-Cl cycle. It is shown by the simulation results that a six-modular MHTGR plant with about 1500 MW_th and the Cu-Cl cycle can provide an electric power of 437 MW_e and a hydrogen flow of 6.7t/h at full power-level. Moreover, while the productivity of hydrogen varies, the transient response meeting the operation requirements. (author)