Reformer autothermal methanol

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... 

Autothermal Methanol Reforming 1 [AMR 1] Micro Structured Autothermal Methanol Reformer... 

Autothermal Methanol Reforming 2 [AMR 2] Micro Structured String Reactor for Autothermal Methanol Reforming... 

Figure 2.16 Methanol conversion as a function of temperature hydrogen selectivity vs. methanol conversion for autothermal methanol reforming [39] (by courtesy of ACS).

Chen et al. [36] performed a comparison of micro structured steel and aluminum plates with a conventional monolith by varying the GHSV. Full conversion could be maintained for autothermal methanol reforming in the micro structures up to a GHSV of 40 000h 1, whereas conversion dropped to 80% at 20 000h 1 at the monolith. Even at 186 000 h, still 95% conversion could be achieved in the stainless-steel micro reactor. No significant performance differences were observed between the steel and aluminum plates. 

Schuessler et al. [85] applied sintering of copper and aluminum powder to form micro structured plates for an integrated autothermal methanol reformer (see Section 2.7.2). The powders were compressed before sintering at a pressure of 1000 bar. Sintering of copper is performed at temperatures between 500 and 700 °C, which allows for the bonding of the plates in a second sintering step (see the next section). 

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. 

Schildhauer, T. J., Geissler, K. (2007). Reactor concept for improved heat integration in autothermal methanol reforming. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 32, 1806-1810. 

Lindstrom et al. [55] developed a fixed-bed autothermal methanol reformer designed for a 5 kW fuel cell operated with copper/zinc oxide catalyst doped with zirconia. The system was started without preheating from ambient temperature by methanol combustion in a start-up burner, which was operated at sixfold air surplus to avoid excessive temperature excursions. Because significant selectivity toward carbon monoxide was observed for the autothermal reforming process, a WGS stage became mandatory [55]. 

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... 

Borup et al. [193] demonstrated that it is possible to heat up an autothermal methanol reformer equipped with a precious metal based catalyst from room temperature, when the O/C ratio of the feed exceeds 1.45. The S/C ratio was set to 1.0 for these investigations. The exothermic oxidation reactions clearly started even at ambient temperature and caused light-off of the reformer. 

Lindstrom et al. developed a fixed-bed autothermal methanol reformer designed for a 5-kWei fuel cell [ 168]. The system was started, without pre-heating, from ambient... 

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