Exergetic evaluation of a conceptual design for hydrogen production and seawater desalination using an advanced nuclear reactor as energy source

In this work, a computational model to develop the conceptual design for hydrogen production and seawater desalination based on a modular nuclear reactor as an energy source is presented. The four-step copper-chlorine (Cu-Cl) process is used to produce hydrogen coupled to the gas turbine modular helium reactor (GT-MHR) nuclear system through a Brayton cycle for the electrical energy generation. A fraction of the thermal energy from the GT-MHR system is used to reach and maintain the temperature requirements in the Cu-Cl process. The rejected heat from the oxy-decomposition reaction is used to desalinate seawater through a multi-stage flash (MSF) process. It is employed a chemical process simulator in order to develop a computational model of the proposed system. The global energy and exergy efficiencies of the proposal are 32.47% and 52.20% respectively, producing 0.2190 kg/s of hydrogen and desalinating 4.9492 kg/s of seawater. It is made an estimate of the cost of hydrogen produced using HEEP®, resulting in 2.77 $/kgH2.