Hydrogen production via natural gas steam reforming in a Pd-Au membrane reactor. Investigation of reaction temperature and GHSV effects and long-term stability

In addition, a long-term natural gas steam reforming reaction was conducted for more than 260 h at different temperatures to evaluate the stability of the membrane reactor. The best MR performances were obtained at the lowest GHSV and highest temperature with greater than 80% hydrocarbon conversions and 80% hydrogen recovery. High-purity hydrogen was obtained in all of the experimental tests and no coke formation was observed. Finally, it is demonstrated that the Pd-Au MR, which was operated for 800 h under different reaction conditions, displayed stable performance, in terms of conversion, hydrogen recovery and product selectivity, while the membrane showed stable performance for more than 1000 h with minimal degradation.