Hydrocarbons valorisation to cleaner fuels: H2-rich gas production via fuel processors

This paper presents a panoramic overview of the experimental work carried out at Politecnico di Torino on the development of structured catalytic reactors for the production of H2-rich streams from hydrocarbons, to be fed to PEM-FCs: short contact time catalytic partial oxidation (SCT-CPO) reactor for syngas production, micro-channelled reactors for syngas CO clean-up, water gas shift (WGS) and preferential oxidation (PROX). Concerning the reactor for methane SCT-CPO, 10% Ni deposited on irregular γ-Al2O3 particles presented the best performance (CH4 conversion > 90%; H2 selectivity > 95%) compared to 0.5% Rh deposited over γ-Al2O3 spheres. As regards the HT-WGS reaction, the best performance was obtained with the catalyst 1% Pt/(CeO2 + TiO2): it reached the thermodynamic equilibrium (inlet CO: 10% b.v.; WHSV = 40 Nl h−1 gcat−1) in the temperature range 450–525 °C, allowing the abatement of almost 60% of the CO present in the fed gas stream. Finally, the best performance towards CO-PROX reaction was obtained with the catalyst 1% Rh/(Al2O3 + 3A zeolite): it reached the complete CO conversion (inlet CO: 0.5% b.v.; WHSV = 40 Nl h−1 gcat−1; λ = 3) in the temperature range 130–160 °C, thus assuring an easy controllability of the system.