Experimental study on the performance of hydrogen production from miniature methanol–steam reformer integrated with Swiss-roll type combustor for PEMFC

CATEGORY: HYDROGEN
Applied Energy, Volume 105, May 2013, Pages 86–98
Experimental study on the performance of hydrogen production from miniature methanol–steam reformer integrated with Swiss-roll type combustor for PEMFC
Rei-Yu Chein (a) , Yen-Cho Chen (b), Che-Ming Chang (a), J.N. Chung (c)
a Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Chung-Hsing University, Taichung City 402, Taiwan
b Department of Energy Engineering, National United University, Miaoli City 360, Taiwan
c Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-6300, United States
Abstract
Describes design and testing of a miniature plate-type hydrogen production reactor using methanol as fuel. The reactor consists of a catalytic combustor, vaporizer, reformer, and methanator. Researchers fabricated all components on a single piece of rectangular quartz glass plate 50 mm × 44 mm × 7 mm in size.
They fabricated the combustor on one side of the glass plate with a Swiss-roll type channel in which the Pt/Al₂O₃ particles were loaded in segmented form to catalyze the combustion. A spiral channel was fabricated on the other side of the plate and divided into three sections: a vaporizer for liquid methanol–water mixture vaporization, a reformer for methanol–steam reforming catalyzed by CuO/ZnO/Al₂O₃ particles and a methanator for carbon monoxide (CO) removal catalyzed by Ru/Al₂O₃ particles.
Test results revealed that the reactor successfully produced H₂ and had thermal efficiency ranging from 13% to 35%. High methanol conversion can be obtained from either a low feed rate to the reformer or a high feed rate to the combustor. However, both cases also produce high CO concentrations. The CO methanation reaction was used to reduce the CO concentration. Researchers observed that the methanation reaction depends greatly on the reactor temperature with high temperature not being favorable to this reaction. High CO conversion and low H₂ consumption with low methanol conversion result when the reaction temperature is low. Both thermal management for producing suitable temperature and catalyst activity improvement in high reaction temperature for the methanator are required in the integrated reactor design to reduce the CO concentration down to acceptable levels for fuel cell operation.
Full Text Source (Subscription or Fee): http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261912009312