OP-II-3

ETHANOL STEAM REFORMING OVER COBALT TALCIN A PLATE MICROREACTORDomínguez M., Cristiano G., Roig M., López E., Llorca J.OP-III-A-13Institut de Tècniques Energètiques, Universitat Politècnica de CatalunyaAv. Diagonal 647, Ed. ETSEIB, 08028 Barcelona, SPAINFax: (0034)934017149, E-mail: jordi.llorca@upc.eduIntroductionEthanol steam reforming (ESR) is suited for the production of hydrogen in industrialenvironments as well as for on-board feeding of internal combustion engines and ondemandfeeding of fuel cells in mobile applications. This topic has received increasingattention in recent years mainly due to the renewable character of bio-ethanol, its nontoxicity,low price, and easy production and transportation [1]. ESR is an endothermicreaction (ΔH 0 ~216 kJ/mol) that yields a maximum of 6 mol of H 2 per mol of ethanol, halfof which originates from water: C 2 H 5 OH + 3 H 2 O 6 H 2 + 2 CO 2 .Traditionally, ESR has been studied over powdered catalysts in order to obtain agood catalyst formulation towards achieving high activity and H 2 selectively whileoperating at low reaction temperature and suppressing other side products, such asCO and CH 4 [2,3]. However, although much work has been addressed in thatdirection, powdered catalysts are not suited for industrial and mobile environmentsdue to poor heat and mass transfer characteristics, elevated pressure drop andattrition problems, among others, and new reactor configurations need to bedeveloped and tested for practical application [4]. In this work we have designed astainless steel plate microreactor for performing ESR and tested it operating at shortcontact times. Moreover, we developed a method for coating plates with cobalt talccatalyst. We have used cobalt talc since it has been recently reported as one of thebest catalysts for conducting ESR at low temperature and, in addition, it does notrequire any activation treatment after start up/shut down cycles [5].Plate microreactorA plate microreactor consisting of two stainless steel bodies was designed forhosting a stainless steel catalytic plate measuring 50x20x1 mm. A mixing and preheatingchamber was included and bores were implemented to assure a uniformdistribution of the feed. Both sides of the catalytic plates were covered with a welldispersed layer of cobalt talc with a thickness of about 0.5 μm. The deposition of the175