Water-gas-shift reaction in a catalytic membrane reactor for fuel-cell appication (TPC.6030)

Project nummer: tpc6030

Omschrijving van het onderzoek

Small scale generation of H2 from hydrocarbon fuels will become increasingly important in connection with application of fuel-cells in the automotive sector, mobile appliances as well as domestic co-generation of electricity and heat from the point of view of improvement in energy efficiency.
This research project aims at exploring the application of precious metal catalysts in an inorganic membrane reactor to achieve high conversions in the water-gas-shift (WGS) reaction CO + H2O ' CO2 + H2 and selective separation of the produced hydrogen in a single step. Existing commercial catalysts for WGS are not applicable here; Cu based catalysts that are very active at low temperature will not survive the adiabatic temperature increase of the reaction and are not suited for frequent starting-up and shutting-down, whereas the Fe-based catalyst that is normally operated at high temperature is far too in-active. Further, high operating temperatures limit the conversion because of thermodynamic constraints and therefore a membrane reactor is proposed to shift the conversion back to sufficiently high levels via selective removal of H2 from the reaction.
The thermal stability of any membrane system (like silica) has its limits.
Therefore, while catalysis research strives for sufficient activity at low metal loadings and temperatures as low as possible, the membrane research is targeted at obtaining stable H2 selective membranes at temperatures as high as possible.
Development of a suitable catalyst/membrane system is one of the bottlenecks for commercial application at the moment.

Gebruikers

Er zijn vier bedrijven bij dit project betrokken.

Projectleider

Prof.dr.ir. L. Lefferts

Universiteit Twente
Technische Natuurwetenschappen

Postbus 217
7500 AE Enschede

Status van het project

Gestart	: 01-09-2003
Einddatum	: 01-10-2007

Trefwoorden

Duurzame technologie, Heterogene katalyse, Katalyse, Membranen, Scheidingstechnologie.

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