Chemical Looping Technologies for H₂ Production with CO₂ Capture: Thermodynamic Assessment and Economic Comparison

This work addresses the techno-economic assessment of two chemical looping technologies for H₂ production from natural gas fully integrated with CO₂ capture. In the first configuration, chemical looping combustion operated with a dual circulating fluidized bed system at atmospheric pressure is used as furnace for the reforming reaction. In the second configuration, a chemical looping reforming system at pressurized conditions is used for the production of the reformed syngas. Both configurations have been designed and compared with reference technologies for H₂ production based on conventional fired tubular reforming with and without CO₂ capture. The results of the analysis show that both new concepts can achieve higher H₂ reforming efficiency than a conventional plant when integrated with CO₂ capture (+8-10% higher). The improvement in the performance of the plant is accompanied with an efficiency penalty of 4-6% and the cost of CO₂ avoidance varies from 20-85 €/ton_CO2.