CO-free hydrogen production by ethanol steam reforming in a Pd-Ag membrane reactor

In this work, the ethanol steam reforming (ESR) reaction has been studied by using a dense Pd-Ag membrane reactor (MR) by varying the water/ethanol molar ratio between 3:1 and 9:1 in a temperature range of 300-400°C and at 1.3 bar as reaction pressure. The MR was packed with a commercial Ru-based catalyst and a constant sweep gas flow rate in counter current mode was used. The influence of the temperature and the feed molar ratio on different parameters such as the ethanol conversion, the hydrogen production, the hydrogen yield and the CO-free hydrogen recovery has been evaluated. © 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA. 10.1002/fuce.20070001