Bio-ethanol steam reforming: Insights on the mechanism for hydrogen production

New catalysts for hydrogen production by steam reforming of bio-ethanol have been developed. Catalytic tests have been performed at laboratory scale, with the reaction conditions demanded in a real processor: i.e. ethanol and water feed, without a diluent gas. Catalyst ICP0503 has shown high activity and good resistance to carbon deposition. Reaction results show total conversion, high selectivity to hydrogen (70%), CO2, CO and CH4 being the only by-products obtained. The reaction yields 4.25 mol of hydrogen by mol of ethanol fed, close to the thermodynamic equilibrium prediction. The temperature influence on the catalytic activity for this catalyst has been studied. Conversion reaches 100% at temperature higher than 600 °C. In the light of reaction results obtained, a reaction mechanism for ethanol steam reforming is proposed. Long-term reaction experiments have been performed in order to study the stability of the catalytic activity. The excellent stability of the catalyst ICP0503 indicates that the reformed stream could be fed directly to a high temperature fuel cell (MCFC, SOFC) without a further purification treatment. These facts suggest that ICP0503 is a good candidate to be implemented in a bio-ethanol processor for hydrogen production to feed a fuel cell.