Virtual Sensing of Key Variables in the Hydrogen Production Process: A Comparative Study of Data-Driven Models

Hydrogen is an ideal energy carrier manufactured mainly by the natural gas steam reforming hydrogen production process. The concentrations of CH4, CO, CO2, and H2 in this process are key variables related to product quality, which thus need to be controlled accurately in real-time. However, conventional measurement methods for these concentrations suffer from significant delays or huge acquisition and upkeep costs. Virtual sensors effectively compensate for these shortcomings. Unfortunately, previously developed virtual sensors have not fully considered the complex characteristics of the hydrogen production process. Therefore, a virtual sensor model, called "moving window-based dynamic variational Bayesian principal component analysis (MW-DVBPCA)" is developed for key gas concentration estimation. The MW-DVBPCA considers complicated characteristics of the hydrogen production process, involving dynamics, time variations, and transportation delays. Specifically, the dynamics are modeled by the finite impulse response paradigm, the transportation delays are automatically determined using the differential evolution algorithm, and the time variations are captured by the moving window method. Moreover, a comparative study of data-driven virtual sensors is carried out, which is sporadically discussed in the literature. Meanwhile, the performance of the developed MW-DVBPCA is verified by the real-life natural gas steam reforming hydrogen production process.