Reformer HotSpot

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. ... 

A prominent example of a fixed-bed reactor applied for auto-thermal reforming is the HotSpot fuel processor developed by Johnson Matthey. Platinum and chromium catalyst were introduced as fixed bed. The reformer could be started from ambient temperature when methanol was used as feedstock [49, 50]. The reactor was preheated initially by methanol combustion and then operated under autothermal conditions. 

The famous HotSpot fuel processor developed by Johnson Matthey was actually a fixed-bed reactor. Platinum and chromium catalyst were applied for the reactor, which was able to start from ambient conditions when methanol was used as the feedstock [5,472]. Through the initial methanol combustion, the reactor was preheated and then able to produce hydrogen containing reformate under autothermal conditions. 

Johnson Matthqr developed the HotSpot fuel processor, a modular autother-mal reformer. The basic idea of the HotSpot was that hydrogen back-diffusion to the reaction front, where it would be consumed by the oxygen feed, was prevented by the spot wise feed injection into the centre of the reactor. The heat of the exothermic reaction was also distributed from the centre of the reactor to its periphery, where it was required to supply the endothermic reactions with energy... 

Reinkingh et al. from Johnson Matthqr reported on a 5-kWd HotSpot natural gas fuel processor [576]. The multi-step unit produced reformate containing 43 vol.% hydrogen, 1 vol.% methane and less than 10 ppm carbon monoxide. The reformer itself produced between only 1 and 2 vol.% carbon monoxide. The natural gas conversion exceeded 90%. 

Most of the development by Nuvera has been for stationary systems however, Johnson Matthey has demonstrated its HotSpot reactor on reformulated gasoline (Ellis et al., 2001). They built a 10-kW fuel processor that met their technical targets, but they also addressed issues relating to mass manufacture their work has identified areas that will require further work to enable gasoline reforming to become a commercial reality. These included the following ... 

Johnson Matthey To develop HotSpot reformer Plans for mass manufacturing... 

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