Performance Evaluation of Sulfur Trioxide Decomposer in a Scale-Down Test Loop at KAERI

The High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor (HTGR) with outlet coolant temperature up to 950 °C is considered as an efficient reactor for the thermo-chemical SI(Sulfur Iodine) cycle to be coupled with for hydrogen production. Sulfur trioxide decomposer is one of the key component to be developed in the SI cycle, since it is operating under very high temperature and pressure(850°C, 40 atm) and very corrosive sulfuric acid atmosphere. The scale-down test loop was installed at KAERI site to confirm the integrity of sulfur trioxide decomposer under such a severe operating condition. Prior to the experiment, the simulation will be done for the sulfur trioxide decomposer with unit operation models provided by the aspen plus chemical process simulator. The flow-sheet and material balance will be developed. The parametric study will be carried out for sulfur trioxide decomposer. This result predicted by aspen simulation will be incorporated into the actual experiments of the sulfur trioxide decomposer. In this paper, the result of several parametric studies will be presented.