Hydrogen Production By Catalytic Conversion Of Synthetic Fuels

For fuel cell applications, the production of hydrogen by steam reforming of synthetic fuels such as dimethyl ether, methanol, and dimethoxymethane was studied over bifunctional ÑuO-CeO₂/g-Al₂O₃catalyst. The catalyst was characterized by XRD, HR TEM, EDX and FTIR spectroscopy. It was found that the catalyst provided the hydrogen production rate ~15 l H₂/(g_cat · h) at complete conversion of dimethyl ether, methanol and dimethoxymethane to hydrogen-rich gas with low CO content in the temperature interval of 300–350°C. Thus, bifunctional catalyst demonstrates high promises for the realization of multifuel processor concept. It enables the production of hydrogen-rich gas from more than one fuel (DME, methanol and DMM) under similar reaction conditions. Moreover, the produced hydrogen-rich gas can be used for direct feeding HT PEM FC and, after CO removal by CO PROX with the same catalyst, LT PEM FC.