Eventos Anais de eventos
ENCIT 2022
19th Brazilian Congress of Thermal Sciences and Engineering
DESIGN AND VALIDATION OF AN ETHANOL AUTOTHERMAL REFORMER
Submission Author:
Rafael de Camargo Catapan , SC , Brazil
Co-Authors:
Jaisson Vidal, Jéssica Florinda Zeitoune, Vinícius Nomura, Camilla Nickel, Diego Duarte, Rafael de Camargo Catapan
Presenter: Jéssica Florinda Zeitoune
doi://10.26678/ABCM.ENCIT2022.CIT22-0281
Abstract
The use of hydrogen H2 as a fuel has been extensively studied due to its high calorific power and for being a green energy source. H2 can be obtained by various processes, which include hydrocarbon reforming reactions and water electrolysis. H2 produced from ethanol reforming seems to be a good trade-off between avoiding pollutant emissions and process efficiency for on-board applications since ethanol is a renewable and ecological fuel. This calls for the development of highly compact and efficient ethanol reformers. This work describes the design and validation of an ethanol autothermal reformer for H2 production for fuel cells applications. A screening of operational conditions was performed to avoid the flammability of the air/ethanol/water mixture, aiming at the complete evaporation of fluids was performed. Water/Ethanol and oxygen/ethanol molar rations were kept at 3:1 and 0.5:1, respectively, while the reaction temperatures varied between 500°C to 700°C. The catalyst is composed of a Ni/Al2O3 monolith made by commercial foams of Al2O3, with 40 pores per inch (PPI), a thickness of 20mm and a diameter of 80mm. The monolith was washcoated with a porous layer of α-Ni/Al2O3 particles, in order to increase surface area. Ni catalyst was impregnated using the wetness technique. The catalyst were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Investigations were focused on the ethanol/water mixture vaporization, reform temperature, catalysts quantities and preheat of ethanol/water mixture.
Keywords
Ethanol Reformer, Hydrogen, Fuel Cell, autothermal reaction, Ni-based catalyts
