Effects of <i>LHSV</i> and Reaction Temperature upon Ethanol-Steam-Reforming Performance

Abstract

Supposing the design of ethanol steam-reforming reactors, the authors conduct experiments for Cu/ZnO/Al 2 O 3 catalyst. Using a household-use-scale reactor with well-controlled temperature distributions, the authors compare experimental results with chemical-equilibrium theories. It has revealed by Shinoki et al. (2011) that Cu/ZnO/Al 2 O 3 catalyst shows rather high performance with high hydrogen concentration C H2 at low values of reaction temperature T R .So, in the present study, the authors reveal the influences of liquid-hourly space velocity LHSV upon concentrations such as C H2 , C CO2 , C CO and C CH4 and the influence of LHSV upon the ethanol conversion X C2H5OH , in a range of LHSV from 0.05 h -1 to 0.8 h -1 , at S/C = 3.0 and T R = 520 K. And, the authors reveal the influences of the thermal profile upon C H2 , C CO2 , C CO , C CH4 and X C2H5OH , for several LHSV's. To conclude, with well-controlled temperatures, the reformed gas can be close to the theory.