Techno-economic assessment of Joule heating for industrial reverse water gas shift

Gavrilo Mihajlović carried out this research as his second year project in the Engineering Doctorate (EngD) program in Process and Product Design (PPD) at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). The work is also a part of the work package that TU/e has for the ECHOED consortium. The project focused on applying electrical heating, more precisely Joule heating to high temperature chemical processes, using the Reverse Water Gas Shift (RWGS) reaction as the main case study.
Industrial heat generation is responsible for a significant share of global CO₂ emissions, particularly for processes operating at high temperatures. RWGS is a key reaction for carbon utilization. It converts captured CO₂ and hydrogen into carbon monoxide, which is used as an intermediate for methanol and Fischer–Tropsch synthesis. Electrifying this reaction could remove direct emissions from the heating step and enable integration with renewable electricity.
Joule heating generates heat directly through electrical resistance in conductive materials. Unlike conventional furnaces, heat is produced exactly where it is needed, allowing fast response times, high efficiency, and compact reactor designs. In this project, both direct and indirect JH reactor configurations were evaluated, including designs where the reactor wall or internal heating elements act as the heating source.
The work combines thermodynamic calculations, reactor modelling, heat transfer analysis, and a techno-economic evaluation. The reaction and separation units were modeled in Aspen Plus, which allowed the material and energy balances to be obtained directly from the simulations. Python models were built to look at temperature profiles and heat transfer along the reactor. Different operating cases were studied, with variations in temperature, pressure, catalyst choice, and reactor geometry.
The results show that JH can deliver the heat needed for the reaction, but the heat transfer limitations in packed beds is a key factor in the reactor design. The main contributor of the operating cost is green hydrogen, while on the capital side the largest shares come from the MDEA carbon capture unit, the RWGS reactor itself, and the compressor or compressors. The study shows under which conditions JH RWGS could be competitive and which design choices offer the lowest cost and best performance.
Overall, the work points out both the potential and the limitations of electrified RWGS reactors and supports the broader effort to electrify as many process as possible.