Effect of temperature and pressure on hydrogen production from steam reforming of biogas with Pd–Ag membrane reactor

• The steam reforming of biogas was conducted on a palladium membrane reactor.
• Simulation results and dimensionless groups explained the experimental trends.
• High temperature favored the hydrogen yield.
• High pressure favored the hydrogen yield on the membrane reactor mode.

The steam reforming reaction of a biogas mixture was conducted with a hydrogen permeable palladium–silver membrane reactor at lower temperatures from 623 to 723 K and from 0.1 to 0.4 MPa of reaction side pressure. The biogas composition was in reference to that of the biogas obtained from the rice husk pyrolysis. In the experiment, the reaction with permeation achieved a higher hydrogen production than the reaction without permeation at the same conditions of temperature and pressure on reaction side, obtaining a maximum hydrogen yield of 80% at 723 K and 0.4 MPa on reaction side. Further, the hydrogen recovery increased with increasing temperature and pressure on reaction side in the case of the reaction with permeation. The mathematical model for the system in this study was proposed and calculated the profile of product and temperature in the reactor. The simulated profiles and the dimensionless groups derived from the mathematical model achieved the analysis of the kinetics in the reactor including that hydrogen and carbon dioxide production from methane and water was the main reaction.