Simulation studies of a membrane water-gas shift reactor under non-isothermal conditions

M.E. ADROVER; E. LÓPEZ; D.O. BORIO; M. PEDERNERA

Malta

Conferencia; XVIII International Conference on Chemical Reactors CHEMREACTOR-18; 2008

Hydrogen production processes and their subsequent purification steps have been extensively studied in the last two decades for fuel-cell feeding. Reforming or partial oxidation of hydrocarbons or alcohols have been reported as the main routes to obtain the required hydrogen. In most cases, the CO content also evolving from the production reactor has to be reduced to avoid the poisoning of the fuel-cell anode catalyst. The water-gas shift reaction (WGSR) is selected to accomplish this task, with the additional effect of increasing the H2 production. This moderately exothermic reaction is strongly controlled by chemical equilibrium. The present contribution presents results regarding the effect of the operating pressure and the sweep-gas flowrate on the performance of the WGSMR. A 1-D, pseudohomogeneous mathematical model has been selected to represent the reactor operation under adiabatic conditions (energy transfer between process and permeate streams only due to the permeation flow). A comparison with a conventional fixed-bed reactor (CR, without H2 permeation) is also reported.