Open Collections

Fluidized bed membrane reactor for steam reforming of higher hydrocarbons

University of British Columbia

With growing demand for hydrogen in the industrial and energy sectors, research on novel hydrogen production processes is gaining importance. Fluctuations in price and availability of different hydrocarbons emphasize the need to diversify feedstock options beyond natural gas, the major source for hydrogen. Traditional steam reformers for making hydrogen from hydrocarbons suffer from low catalyst effectiveness factors, poor heat transfer and limited hydrogen yield due to thermodynamic equilibrium constraints. A fluidized bed membrane reactor (FBMR) was designed, fabricated, installed with close attention to safety and operated with methane, propane and heptane as feedstocks at average bed temperatures up to 550°C and pressures up to 800 kPa. When operated without membranes, near-equilibrium conditions were achieved inside the reactor with fluidized catalyst due to the fast reforming reactions. Installation hydrogen permselective Pd₇₇Ag₂₃ membrane panels inside the reactor to extract pure hydrogen shifted the reaction towards complete conversion of the hydrocarbons, including methane, the key intermediate when propane and heptane were the feed hydrocarbons. Reforming of higher hydrocarbons was found to be limited by the reversibility of the steam reforming of this methane. To assess the performance due to hydrogen in situ withdrawal, experiments were conducted with one and six membrane panels along the reactor. The results demonstrated that the FBMR could produce pure hydrogen from higher hydrocarbon feedstocks at moderate operating temperatures of 475-550°C. A two-phase fluidized bed reactor model was developed, with gas assumed to be in plug flow in both the bubble and dense phases. Diffusional mass transfer, as well as bulk convective flow between the phases, was incorporated to account for concentrations changing due to reactions predominantly in the dense phase, and due to increased molar flow due to reaction. Membranes withdraw hydrogen from both the dense and bubble phases. These studies show that an FBMR can provide compact reactor system with favourable hydrogen yield, and high purity. The model predicted feedstock flexibility capabilities achieved by the experiments, with the higher hydrocarbon feedstock rapidly producing methane and the non-permeate mixture approaching chemical equilibrium.

Text

2010-07-28

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/26991

Chemical and Biological Engineering

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/