Very high temperature reactor hydrogen production

Hydrogen Production with Very High-Temperature Reactor.147... 

Hydrogen Production with Very High-Temperature Reactor 4.4.1 Overview of the Very High-Temperature Reactor... 

Figure 1 Very high temperature reactor with hydrogen production system...

The PBMR, the GT-MHR, the GTHTR300 (Annex XVI) and the AHTR (Annex XXVI) target a very high temperature reactor option, which could make them competitive in future markets of non-electric applications, such as hydrogen production. 

Session 4 focused on recent advances in the thermochemical copper chloride and calcium bromide cycles. Much of the current research on thermochemical cycles for hydrogen production involves the sulphur cycles (sulphur-iodine, hybrid sulphur), however, these cycles require very high temperatures ( 800-900°C) to drive the acid decomposition step. The interest in the Cu-Cl and Ca-Br cycles is due to the lower peak temperature requirements of these cycles. The peak temperature requirement for the Cu-Cl cycle is about 550°C, which would allow this cycle to be used with lower temperature reactors, such as sodium- or lead-cooled reactors, or possibly supercritical water reactors. Ca-Br requires peak temperatures of about 760°C. Both of these cycles are projected to have good efficiencies, in the range of 40%. Work on Cu-Cl is ongoing in France, Canada and the United States. Work on Ca-Br has been done primarily in Japan and the US, with the more recent work being done in the US at ANL. The papers presented in this session summarised the recent advances in these cycles. 

Demonstrate a full-scale prototype gas cooled reactor to produce very high temperature process heat for efficient electricity generation and hydrogen production ... 

Elder, R., AUen, R., 2009. Nuclear heat for hydrogen production coupling a very high/high temperature reactor to a hydrogen production plant. Progress in Nuclear Energy 51 (3), 500-525. 

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