INVESTIGADORES
LOPEZ Eduardo
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Heat effects in a membrane reactor for the water-gas shift reaction
Autor/es:
M.E. ADROVER; E. LÓPEZ; M. PEDERNERA; D. BORIO
Lugar:
Natal
Reunión:
Simposio; 8th Natural Gas Conversion Symposium; 2007
Resumen:
Most of the hydrogen is produced industrially by steam reforming of
hydrocarbons (mainly natural gas) or alcohols (e.g., for fuel cell
applications). The process gas stream coming from the steam reformer is
composed by H2, CO, CO2, H2O and small amounts of unconverted reactants
(CH4). The CO concentration of the gas leaving the reformer must be
reduced up to a specified level, with two main goals: 1) increase the H2
production rate and 2) purify the process stream. To these ends, the
Water Gas Shift Reaction (WGSR) is widely used: The reaction is
moderately exothermic and strongly controlled by the chemical
equilibrium, which is favored at low temperatures. In small scale
processes, such as the fuel processing for fuel cells (e.g., PEM cells)
normally the WGSR is carried out at an intermediate temperature level,
requiring large reactor volumes to reach the necessarily high CO
conversions.An attractive alternative to increase the CO conversion is
the membrane reactor (MR). The main idea of this design is the selective
permeation of reaction products (e.g., H2) to shift the equilibrium
towards products and consequently decrease the CO outlet concentration,
or reduce the amount of catalyst for a desired conversion level. The
purpose of the present work, where the performance of the MR is
simulated and compared with that of the conventional fixed bed reactor
(CR). To compare both types of reactors, two extreme operating
conditions are selected: isothermal and adiabatic operations.