OP-II-3

OP-III-B-630/19.6 Nl/min (space velocity of ca. 3000 Nm 3 m –3 h –1 ) and feed/permeate pressure of35/15 bar(a). Higher conversion and H 2 recovery over 95 % are within reach bylowering the permeate pressure. Stability tests showed that CO conversion remainedstable under different feed pressures and under reduced steam content in the feed,indicating that membrane degradation due to carbon formation was not observed, alsonot under low steam conditions resulting in a high carbon formation tendency.Figure 1: CO conversion as function of the feed pressure and flow rate.The results of the experiments are analysed with a 1-dimensional axial balancemodel accounting for reaction, membrane permeation and heat effects. This allows forestimation of the membrane permeance under WGS conditions. The results arecompared to pure H 2 permeance measurements and to similar analysis ofmeasurements using a H 2 /N 2 mixture, which allow for assessment of the relativecontribution of mass transfer.191