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The methane steam reforming in a catalytic membrane reactor has been studied. A previous theoretical study of this reaction has been carried out. In the model a global kinetic rate as function of three reactions over nickel catalyst as proposed by Xu and Froment (AIChE J. 1989, 35 (1), 88−96, 97−103) has been considered. It has been shown that the counterflow configuration has, at high temperature (500 °C), a marginal advantage on parallel flow and, also, that the space velocity cannot be considered a design variable for membrane reactors. A laboratory plant was realized utilizing membranes of Pd and Pd/Ag supported on Al2O3. The Pd membranes utilized have been prepared using the co-condensation technique and the electroless plating method. A comparison of the overall membrane performance has also been carried out. The experiments were aimed to study the effects of several parameters such as temperature, feed flow rate, and feed molar ratio on the methane conversion. The experimental results have been compared with the data predicted by the previously developed theoretical model.

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