1- MANUFACTURING of MATERIAL BASED HYDROGEN FUEL for LIGHTWEIGHT VEHICLES by ALI KHAGHANI a Thesis
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
MANUFACTURING OF MATERIAL BASED HYDROGEN FUEL FOR LIGHTWEIGHT VEHICLES Item Type text; Electronic Thesis Authors KHAGHANI, ALI Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 23/09/2021 12:36:34 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/613155 MANUFACTURING OF MATERIAL BASED HYDROGEN FUEL FOR LIGHTWEIGHT VEHICLES By ALI KHAGHANI ____________________ A Thesis Submitted to The Honors College In Partial Fulfillment of the Bachelors degree With Honors in Chemical Engineering THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA M A Y 2016 Approved by: ____________________________ Dr. Kimberly Ogden Chemical and Environmental Engineering -1- Abstract Vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells store hydrogen as a cooled liquid at 20 degrees kelvin or a compressed gas at 10,000 pounds per square inch. An alternative that eliminates the need for these extremes of temperature and pressure is to heat a compound containing covalently bonded hydrogen, causing it to release the hydrogen to the fuel cell. Ammonia borane, which is stable at ambient conditions, requires minimal energy for dehydrogenation, and is rich in hydrogen, is a possible storage medium for hydrogen. If a viable storage system could be engineered, demand for ammonia borane as a source of hydrogen would increase. The goal of this project is to develop a processing plant and to optimize design specifications for scaling up processing of ammonia borane through the metathesis reaction pathway. Optimization of individual unit operations was determined using quality-by-design concepts, which allowed the team to confirm scalability, design limitations, and competitive market pricing. The final design involves the application of two mixers, two reactors, and four separators. The plant design should yield 99 percent pure ammonia borane. Executive Summary Material based hydrogen storage systems are beginning to change the way we provide hydrogen gas to fuel cells in lightweight vehicles. Traditional storage systems fall into one of two categories; cryogenic (cooled and stored as a liquid) or compressed (stored at very high pressures). Utilizing materials that “soak up” hydrogen and release the compound on demand provides a safer and more practical method for storing hydrogen. Although this third category is relatively new, much attention and effort put forth to select and manipulate a material to achieve the following target goals set by the department of energy (DOE): I. The material must have a relatively high hydrogen content (<10 wt.%) in order to maximize energy per volume of fuel II. Kinetic reversibility provides the ability to reuse the material based fuel with minimum effort. III. Overall production of this material must be competitive in the current market Ammonia borane was chosen to be D.A.B Chemicals primary molecule for storing hydrogen by bonds formed within the compound itself. The molecule is made up of 19 wt.% hydrogen, but only 14% is accessible due to the final mechanistic stage in the reaction. Scale up processing has been optimized and determined to yield a microcrystalline product (Ammonia borane) that is 99% pure. Although the synthetic process was carried out to -2- produce large quantities of ammonia borane; an intermediate chemical ammonium borohydride would be a better candidate if the stability was enhanced. The main reaction of the ammonia borane synthesis takes place in a single CSTR and known as the metathesis reaction. Multiple mixers prepare the solution before entering the first reaction; along with an additional stream of liquid ammonia to stabilize the highly hindered intermediate ammonium borohydride. Once the reaction has reached its desired residence time, the slurry is pumped to three settling vessels to allow the intermediate to decompose to ammonia borane. Recycling the expensive solvents (tetrahydrofuran and ammonia) and extraction of our product is carried out using a series of rotary vacuum filtration drums and a flash distillation. Due to the limited amount of published information on ammonia borane and its intermediate ammonium borohydride, certain assumptions were made. Physical properties including density, enthalpy, molecule size and resistance were all assumed or averaged based on previous process designs and clues found in the literature. For example, the particle size of ammonia borane was ascertained to be smaller than sodium chloride but larger than THF based on scientific reports and patents found online. Assumptions were made to be viable and as accurate as possible given the information. For the D.A.B company to profitable, ammonia borane must be sold at $8.97 a kilogram. While this is significantly lower than the current market price of $400 a kilogram, it will need to be reduced further to be able to compete with gasoline prices. 38 kg of ammonia borane product is necessary for 314 miles of driving. A 314-mile fill-up currently costs on average $29 for gasoline, while the ammonia borane will require $314. Gasoline prices would need to increase by 1100% in the United States and 345% in Europe for D.A.B to be competitive. Complete analysis of economic impacts can be found in section 5 of the report. Thus, it was decided that the process and production of ammonia borane for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is not profitable or feasible at this time. -3- II. Table of Contents Abstract/Executive Summary…………………………………………………….…….………....i Section 1: Introduction/Background………………………………………………………...…5 Section 2: Overall Process Description, Rationale and Optimization………….…..7 Section 3: Equipment Description, Rationale, and Optimization……………..……..23 Section 4: Safety/Environmental Factors……………………………………………………..29 Section 5: Economic Analysis……………………………………………..……………………….38 Section 6: Conclusion and Recommendations………………………………………………45 Section 7: Nomenclature……………………………………………….…………...………………..48 Section 8: References……………………………….……………...………………………………….49 Section 9: Appendices…….………………………………………...…………………………………56 Appendix A: Process Calculations………………………………….……………………………..58 Appendix B: Equipment Sizing and Costs ……………………………………………………..63 Appendix C: Economic Calculations…………………………………….……………………….. 93 Appendix D: Other Process, Calculations, and Numbers …………..…..…………..…..104 Appendix E: Mass Balance………………………………………….…………………………….....108 Appendix F: Meeting Logs………………………………………..………………………………....109 . -4- Section 1: Introduction 1.1: Overall Goal Fuel cell technology is currently being touted as the next leap forward in clean and sustainable transportation because of its broad range of benefits including high reliability, low maintenance, reduction in oil resources, and efficient energy conversion. Currently hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCV) transport hydrogen in a compressed form under 10,000 psi. However there are current doubts about the safety of transporting compressed hydrogen gas in vehicles due to the potential hazard of it igniting or rupturing, which could create an explosion. Also, due to significant weight involved with carrying these containers (around 200 kg empty) long range capabilities are not practical. In light of this, our senior design’s goal was to identify and design a plant to mass produce a material based hydrogen source for fuel cells. The material fuel should be produced and sold at a competitive price to gasoline to attract investors. Figure 1.1.1 was used to determine what compound we chose (Materials-Based Hydrogen Storage, Web). Ammonia borane was identified as an excellent source for the hydrogen required to fuel the vehicles. Ammonia borane has 146 g H2/L compared to the 40 g H2/L that compressed hydrogen has at 10,000 psi (Hosmon, Print). The hydrogen is also released at a temperature of 100C, making it readily feasible for modern cars. Scale up using literature values would give us an ammonia borane purity of 99%. This purity could be further refined using certain solvents to achieve a 99.9% purity, but is not covered in this report. The byproducts of the reaction are hydrogen gas and sodium chloride, which will be sold to further maximize profits. -5- An initial theoretical production of 10,000 tons of ammonia borane has been determined. This allows for future growth while also taking into account that not every hydrogen fuel cell car may employ this technology. Figure 1.1 shows the estimated sales of FCEV vehicles and was used to determine our production number. From this production D.A.B can refuel 237,017 tanks a year. 1.2: Current Market Section Current demand for the product is theoretical as it is a completely new and is not currently being used in modern hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. To make the product competitive with the gasoline market we agreed that the material must be sold so that a full tank, capable of going at least 314 miles, must be priced to within five dollars. We have determined our preferred market to be the United States rather than international. The current market for gasoline is at the lowest it has been since 2009, with an average US gas price of $2.069 per gallon (EIA, Web), and an average of 21.6 miles per gallon in light duty vehicles. To be competitive currently, ammonia borane must be sold at $.87 per kilogram (see Appendix D- 3). Due to the current gas price, the production of this product is not feasible at this time, and we will not be going forward with our process as ammonia borane must be priced at $8.97 a kilogram. 1.3 Project Premises and Assumptions The process design was based on the 2020 goals set by the department of energy. We assumed that if the process was feasible, there would be a market for the new technology and that car manufacturers would be able to create a system to release the hydrogen from the ammonia borane. We assumed many qualities of the ammonium borohydride intermediate due to the complete lack of information in both web and book resources regarding even the most basic properties. We also had to do this to a lesser extent with the ammonia borane.