High-temperature nuclear reactor power plant cycle for hydrogen and electricity production – numerical analysis

¹ AGH University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Energy and Fuels, Department of Fundamental Research in Energy Engineering, Krakow, Poland
² AGH University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Energy and Fuels, Department of Nuclear Energy, Krakow, Poland

^a Corresponding author: michald@agh.edu.pl

Abstract

High temperature gas-cooled nuclear reactor (called HTR or HTGR) for both electricity generation and hydrogen production is analysed. The HTR reactor because of the relatively high temperature of coolant could be combined with a steam or gas turbine, as well as with the system for heat delivery for high-temperature hydrogen production. However, the current development of HTR’s allows us to consider achievable working temperature up to 750°C. Due to this fact, industrial-scale hydrogen production using copper-chlorine (Cu-Cl) thermochemical cycle is considered and compared with high-temperature electrolysis. Presented calculations show and confirm the potential of HTR’s as a future solution for hydrogen production without CO₂ emission. Furthermore, integration of a hightemperature nuclear reactor with a combined cycle for electricity and hydrogen production may reach very high efficiency and could possibly lead to a significant decrease of hydrogen production costs.