M. Mohammad Alinejad - Chemical Enginering Depratment, Urmia University of Technology, Urmia, Iran
M. Ghasemzadeh - Chemical Enginering Depratment, Urmia University of Technology, Urmia, Iran
A. Aghaeinejad-Meybodi - Chemical Enginering Depratment, Faculty of Engineering, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran.
K. Ghasemzadeh - Chemical Enginering Depratment, Faculty of Engineering, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran.

The main purpose of this study is quantitative investigation of silica membrane performance in single stage membrane, continuous membrane column (CMC), In series membrane cascade (ISMC) and countercurrent recycle membrane cascade (CRC) for hydrogen separation from methanol steam reforming products to produce high purity hydrogen. The modeling results showed that the silica membrane presents noticeable performance to produce high purity hydrogen more than 99.9% in multistage configurations. As a case study, the required total membrane area and compressor duty for all of configurations for separation of a typical methanol steam reforming products stream for cocurrent flow pattern was evaluated. The optimum scheme was then selected by means of minimum total membrane area, compressor duty requirements and the amount of hydrogen purification. Results showed that the countercurrent recycle membrane cascade (CRC) is more efficient than the other configurations. Moreover, the retentate side pressure effect was positive on the performance of silica membrane and required membrane area and was negative on the compressor duty.

Silica Membrane, Hydrogen Separation, Modeling, Continuous Membrane Column, Countercurrent Recycle Cascade, In Series Membrane Cascade