Hydrogen Production from Ethanol by Steam Reforming with Cu/ZnO/Al_2O_3( The 14th National Symposium on Power and Energy System)

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 specify the effect of liquid-hourly space velocity LHSV upon the ethanol conversion X_ in the range of LHSV from 0.05 to 1.40h^<-1> at steam-to-carbon ratio S/C=3.0 and reaction temperature T=420, 470, 520K, and the effect of LHSV upon concentrations such as C_ , C_ , C_ and C_ at T=470K. Furthermore, 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 T for the ethanol steam reforming, from a viewpoint concerning X_ . Furthermore, the obtained concentrations suggest that the dominant chemical reactions at LHSV<0.2h^<-1> are different from those at LHSV≥0.2h^<-1>.