H2 production with low carbon content via MSR in packed bed membrane reactors for high-temperature polymeric electrolyte membrane fuel cell

This work compares the hydrogen purity and recovery produced by a methanol steam reforming (MSR) packed bed membrane reactor (PBMR) equipped with a membrane selective to hydrogen (Pd-Ag) and with a membrane selective to carbon dioxide (porous membrane filled with ionic liquids-ILs). A 3-dimensional non-isothermal PBMR model was developed in Fluent (Ansys™) for simulating a PBMR equipped with these two types of membranes and simulating a conventional packed bed reactor (PBR). For the development PBMR models a MSR mechanistic kinetic model was fitted to experimental reaction rates of a commercial catalyst (BASF RP60). The results indicated that selective hydrogen removal from the reaction medium originates a significant increase in the methanol conversion, while the carbon dioxide removal has a smaller effect. CO2-PBMR showed to be more efficient in terms of energy consumption than H2-PMBR. The simulation results showed also that ILs membranes must have a minimum permeance of ⩾1 x 10−6 mol s−1 m−2 Pa−1 and CO2/H2 selectivity of ⩾200 at 473 K to be attractive for this type of applications. The advantages and limitations of each reactor configuration are discussed based on experimental and simulated data.