Pd–Ag membrane reactor for steam reforming reactions: A comparison between different fuels

The simulation of a dense Pd-based membrane reactor for carrying out the methane, the methanol and the ethanol steam reforming (SR) reactions for pure hydrogen production is performed. The same simulation is also performed in a traditional reactor.This modelling work shows that the use of membrane reactor is effective for carrying out the methane SR reaction, giving in the best conditions a conversion increase of 800% with respect to a traditional system, and can be really useful for carrying out the methanol SR reaction (25% conversion increase). Vice versa, the use of the membrane reactor in the ethanol SR reaction is still affected by the low catalytic activity. However, also for the ethanol SR reaction system, the use of the membrane reactor gives an increase of the ethanol conversion (30%) and a relatively high increase of the hydrogen yield.