Hydrogen production via catalytic autothermal reforming of desulfurized Jet-A fuel

On-board hydrogen production via catalytic autothermal reforming is beneficial to vehicles using fuel cells as auxiliary power unit because it eliminates the challenges of hydrogen storage. As the primary fuel for both civilian and military air flight application, Jet-A fuel (after desulfurization) was reformed for making hydrogen-rich fuels in this study using an in-house-made Rh/NiO/K-La-Ce-Al-OX catalyst under various operating conditions. Based on the preliminary thermodynamic analysis of reaction equilibrium, important parameters such as ratios of H2O/C and O2/C were selected, in the range of 1.1-2.5 and 0.5-1.0, respectively. The optimal operating conditions were experimentally obtained at the reactor's temperature of 696 °C, which gave H2O/C = 2.5 and O2/C = 0.5, and the obtained fuel conversion percentage, hydrogen yield, and energy efficiency were 0.89, 1.44, and 0.65, respectively. In addition, a discussion of the molar fraction variation of CO and CO2 at different H2O/C, as well as the analysis of fuel conversion profile, leads to the finding of effective approaches for suppression of coke formation.