Risk assessment of hydrogen production system by dimethyl ether steam reforming with the use of nuclear power

Hydrogen is regarded as a clean fuel because it does not pollute when burned with air. In the case of commercial use, there is a need to research how to produce hydrogen more efficiency and large scale. Although there are some methods of hydrogen production, it can be considered that the heat of the nuclear reactor is promising method. In the recent studies on the hydrogen production with nuclear power, there has focused on the technical issues. Therefore, the object in this paper is to perform the risk assessment for a system of hydrogen production plant by Dimethyl Ether (DME) steam reforming with the use of nuclear power. First, one of the suitable systems with the DME steam reforming plant was selected PWR. A FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects analysis) was performed to identify initiating events. After identifying initiating events, event tree analysis (ETA) was performed to quantify the average frequency of an accident at this system. The result of the PSA, the safety of DME steam reforming plant with nuclear power depends on a rupture of reformer and heat exchanger between hydrogen and DME by the result of FMEA. Event tree analysis shows that the average frequency of hydrogen or DME explosion is 7.7 ×X 10^-7 year^-1 in the case of the rupture of the reformer and 1.9 × 10^-8 year^-1 in the case of the break of the heat exchanger.