D214 Hydrogen production by Ethanol Steam Reforming at Low Reaction Temperature

The authors try to reveal the dominant chemical reactions and the optimum conditions, supposing the design of ethanol steam-reforming reactors for hydrogen production. Experiments are conducted for Cu/ZnO/Al_2O_3 catalyst together with Ru/Al_2O_3 catalyst. Using a household-use-scale reactor with well-controlled temperature distributions, we specify the effect of liquid-hourly space velocity LHSV upon the ethanol conversion X_ in the range of LHSV to 2.0h^<-1> at steam-to-carbon ratio S/C=3 and reaction temperature T=520K, and the effect of LHSV upon concentrations such as C_ , C_ , C_ and C_ at T=520K. X_ attains a high value even at LHSV=2.0h^<-1>, but is unstable. The Cu/ZnO/Al_2O_3 catalyst shows rather high performance at low values of T for the ethanol steam reforming than the Ru/Al_2O_3 catalyst. The obtained concentrations suggest that the dominant chemical reactions at LHSV<0.2h^<-1> are different from those at LHSV≥0.2h^<-1>.