C214 AN ANALYTICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF ETHANOL STEAM REFORMING WITH Cu/ZnO/Al_2O_3 CATALYST(Hydrogen and Reforming-1)

In the present study, we reveal the dominant chemical reactions and the optimum conditions, supposing the design of ethanol steam-reforming reactors. Experiments are conducted for Cu/ZnO/Al_2O_3 catalyst. Using a household-use-scale reactor with well-controlled temperature distributions, we compare experimental results with chemical-equilibrium theories. As a result, the Cu/ZnO/Al_2O_3 catalyst shows rather high performance at low values of reaction temperature T. This suggests that the Cu/ZnO/Al_2O_3 catalyst promotes the ethanol-steam-reforming and water-gas-shift reactions, but does not promote the methanation reaction. Furthermore, we specify the effect of steam-carbon molar ratio S/C upon concentrations such as C_ , C_ , C_ and C_ , together with the effect of T upon C_ , C_ , C_ and C_ . In addition, we have researched the influence of liquid-hourly space velocity LHSV upon the ethanol conversion X_ at in the range of LHSV from 0.05 to 1.40h^<-1>, at S/C = 3.0 and T= 420K, 470K and 520K.