Simulation and optimization for hydrogen purification performance of vacuum pressure swing adsorption

A study was performed for hydrogen purification of multicomponent mixture (N-2/CO/CO2/CH4/H-2=0.007/0.012/0.17/ 0.021/0.79) by one-column VPSA with AC5-KS. The performance of the one-column VPSA process can be predicted by a heat and mass transfer model with porous media adsorption. The simulation results agreed well with experimental data. The model was employed to assess the effects of P/F ratio and adsorption time in VPSA unit. The result showed, an increase in P/F ratio and a decrease in feeding time led to an increase in purity of hydrogen and a decrease in recovery. The Sequential Quadratic Programming method was applied to optimize the cycle. The result showed when pressure was set at 5 bar, feed rate was set at 5x10(-5) m(3)/s and P/F ratio was set at 0.3, hydrogen was obtained with a purity of 99.17% and recovery of 58.94% after purification in N-2/CO/CO2/CH4/H-2 mixture. (C) 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.