INVESTIGADORES
LOPEZ Eduardo
artículos
Título:
Ethanol steam reforming thermally coupled with fuel combustion in a parallel plate reactor
Autor/es:
EDUARDO LÓPEZ; VANESSA GEPERT; ACHIM GRITSCH; ULRICH NIEKEN; GERHART EIGENBERGER
Revista:
INDUSTRIAL & ENGINEERING CHEMICAL RESEARCH
Editorial:
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
Referencias:
Lugar: Washington; Año: 2012 vol. 51 p. 4143 - 4151
ISSN:
0888-5885
Resumen:
This contribution reports experimental studies of ethanol steam reforming for the production of a hydrogen-rich
reformate for fuel cells. A Pd-based catalyst, coated on corrugated metallic structures, was used. Axial concentration profiles for all
components present in the system were measured in a kinetic reactor under isothermal conditions for different temperatures,
flow rates, and steam-to-carbon ratios. Appropriate activity and hydrogen selectivity were achieved for this catalytic system at
650 °C, with complete ethanol conversion (no acetaldehyde), ca. 5% carbon monoxide and 1% methane as byproducts. For
reactor modeling in an appropriate range of operating conditions, a simple global kinetics model is proposed; the correspondent
parameters were fitted to the experimental data. Thermal coupling between ethanol steam reforming and hydrogen combustion
was experimentally studied for subsequent implementation in a parallel-plate reactor, preferably in a so-called folded plate
reactor. A single unit of this reactor, consisting of one combustion channel in between two halves of reforming channels was
selected for the experimental proof-of-concept. The influence of different operating variables (ethanol load, feed distribution of
the combustion fuel along the channel length, operation temperature, and steam-to-carbon ratio) on the reactor performance and
the thermal coupling pattern will be discussed.