A Distributed Control System Design for Nuclear-Based Hydrogen Production With Copper-Chlorine Thermochemical Cycle

Abstract

Nuclear-based hydrogen generation is a promising method of large-scale hydrogen production. In a copper-chlorine (Cu-Cl) thermochemical cycle, water is decomposed into hydrogen and oxygen through intermediate copper and chlorine compounds. In this paper, the design of a Distrusted Control System (DCS) for the Cu-Cl cycle is presented. The architecture, communication network and network protocols for the DCS are proposed. A hydrogen reactor unit is used as a case study to demonstrate the detailed design. The configuration of sensors, actuators and controllers is discussed by a Piping & Instrumentation Diagram (P&ID) for the reactor unit.