Thermodynamic study of hydrogen production from glycerol via supercritical water reforming

L. ROVETTO; M. E. FRONTANÉ; A. VELEZ; L. MOYANO

Iguazú

Conferencia; PPEPPD 20013 ? 13th International Conference on Properties and Phase Equilibria for Products and Process Design; 2013

International Organizing Committee of PPEPPD2013

The emerging ?hydrogen economy? promotesthe development of alternative, sustainable and clean hydrogen productionprocesses to build an efficient energy system. The technology of supercriticalwater reforming (SCWR) is currently under investigation for hydrogen productionform biomass and other biomass or bio-fuels derivatives with promising resultsas one of the most promising alternatives. This work presents a thermodynamic study ofsupercritical water reforming (SCWR) of glycerol into hydrogen as the mainproduct. The phase behavior of the compounds involved in this chemical transformation(mainly glycerol, H2O, H2, CH4, CO, CO2)is studied in order to define the supercritical region to carry out theprocess. The Group Contribution with Association Equation of State (GCA-EoS) isthe thermodynamic model chosen to investigate the phase behavior of thissystem. The GCA-EoS model, takes into account molecular self andcross-association effects, and shows accurate results in predicting phasebehavior of asymmetric and polar systems at high pressures and temperatures,required for the SCWR process. Different phase behavior scenarios of selectedbinary and ternary mixtures present throughout the glycerol conversion processtowards hydrogen are presented.The hydrogen yield is function of thereaction route and operating conditions, equilibrium calculations wereperformed using the Gibbs free energy minimization method, to evaluate thereactor feed, temperature and pressure which maximize the hydrogen production