Autothermal reforming of methanol

Lattner JR, Harold MP. Autothermal reforming of methanol experiments and modeling. Catal Today. 2007 120(l) 78-89. 

Partial oxidation provides quick start-up and compactness, while steam reforming produces relatively high concentration of hydrogen in the product gas. The steam reforming is endothermic and the partial oxidation is exothermic so that the combination of these two reactions in appropriate proportion allows close to thermal neutrality, or adiabatic conditions at the desired temperature. HotSpot reactor systems have been developed for the autothermal reforming of methanol. ... 

Autothermal reforming of methanol, also known as Oxidative Methanol Reforming (OMR), is one such method. This process is distinguished from steam reforming of methanol by the co-feeding of oxygen to the reactor system. The stoichiometry of the reaction at an oxygen/methanol ratio of 0.25 is shown in Equation 1. 

Lattner and Harold [56] performed autothermal reforming of methanol in a relatively big fixed-bed reactor carrying 380 g BASF alumina-supported copper/zinc oxide catalyst modified with zirconia. The 01C ratio was set to 0.22 while the SIC ratio varied from 0.8 to 1.5. The axial temperature profile of the reactor, which had a length of 50 cm, was rather flat, the hot spot temperature did not exceed 280° C which was achieved by the air distribution system through porous ceramic membrane tubes. More than 95% conversion was achieved. Very low carbon dioxide formation was observed for this reactor only 0.4 vol.% was found in the reformate. However, the WHSV calculated from the data of Lattner and Harold [56] reveals a low value of only 6 l/(h gcat) for the highest CHSV of 10 000 h reported. 

Lattner, JR, Harold, MP. Autothermal reforming of methanol Experiments and modeling. Catal. Today 2007 120 78-89. 

However, copper/zinc oxide catalysts are also active for autothermal reforming of methanol [157], the copper is then present as the oxide. Some examples will be described below. 

In general, copper-based catalysts are extremely sensitive to oxidising conditions, which makes their application for autothermal reforming of methanol difficult in... 

Basile et al. performed steam reforming and autothermal reforming of methanol in a fixed-bed of copper/zinc oxide catalyst, which was positioned below a palladium/ silver membrane containing 20 wt.% silver which had athickness of 60 pm [525]. The pressure on the reaction side was 1.2 bar, while the permeate side was under... 

Koga, H., Fukahori, S., Kitaoka, T, Tomoda, A., Suzuki, R. and Wariishi, H. (2006) Autothermal reforming of methanol using paper-like Cu/ZnO catalyst composites prepared by a papermaking technique. Appl. Catal. A, 309, 263-269. 

SRM based on MSRs has acquired an increasing interest due to system compactness with portable apphcations for fuel cells, which could be apphed on auxiliary power imits (APUs). Moreover, catalytic autothermal reforming of methanol has also been considered since it offers some advantages over endothermic steam reforming and exothermic partial oxidation [67]. 

OSR) rather than autothermal reforming.23-26 The OSR concept has been reported for the first time in the reforming of methanol for H2 production27,28 and this methodology has been widely employed by others for the reforming of methanol and... 

These partial oxidation reactions are exothermic and, thus, reformers are expected to be energy efficient and compact compared to the steam reforming. The partial oxidation of methane can be carried out by Ni, Co, Rh, and Pt group metals for the temperature range of 700-1000°C, while that of methanol has been studied over Cu-based catalysts in the temperature range of 200-300° C. Autothermal reforming of... 

Membrane reactors for autothermal reforming of methane, methanol, and ethanol... 

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