III International Conference

PP-III-65OXDATIVE CONVERSION OF HYDROCARBON FUELS TO SYNGAS IN AMONOLITH REACTORBobrova L., Sadykov V., Parmon V.Boreskov Institute of Catalysis SB RAS, Novosibirsk, RussiaE-mail: lbobrova@catalysis.ruPresented is a study of syngas generation from hydrocarbon fuels in a monolith reactor.The processes of methane, isooctane and gasoline partial oxidation over monoliths developedin the Boreskov Institute of Catalysis are considered on the base of theoretical andexperimental data. Also discussed are problems emerged from the short contact time reactoroperating at a pilot scale.Hydrogen’s unchallenged potential to reduce greenhouse gases and atmosphericpollutants will always make hydrogen a major candidate to fulfil the world energy demand.To avoid a hydrogen supply infrastructure, hydrogen generation in a small scale by processingthe conventional fuels near the point of usage may be a good solution. Typically, in the firststep of the fuel-processing technologies the hydrocarbon is transferred into a gas containinglarge quantities of hydrogen and carbon monoxide (syngas). Two leading liquid fuelreforming techniques considered to be the candidates for the small-scale application: directpartial oxidation with air and so called indirect partial oxidation, i.e. combination of partialoxidation and steam reforming in stand-alone catalytic system, viewed as authothermalreforming [1,2] have been studied in the paper. Generally, the partial oxidation of organics tosyngas may be expressed as following:С n Н m O p + х О2 + (n-2х-p) Н2О = n СО + (n-2х-p+(½ m)) Н2The oxidation processes in a monolith reactors exhibit features not observed inconventional packed bed reactors. Indeed, monoliths operate at 800-1200 o C with the gasflow velocities of -1 m/s with open channel catalyst structures for effective contact times of afew milliseconds. The composite ceramics and metallic monoliths were employed in theexperiments. Platinum and LaNiO 3 along with the Ce-Zr-La-O mixed oxide layer (~10 wt. %)were applied in the washcoat [3]. The experiments on the oxidative conversion ofhydrocarbon fuels with air to syngas were conducted in a nearly adiabatic monolith reactorusing methane, isooctane and the real gasoline containing 191 hydrocarbon species. Theexperimental data were compared with the results of accompanying thermodynamicmodelling It was shown that for monoliths under the study, the composition of the productgas is mainly ruled by thermodynamic equilibrium at the exit temperature which isdetermined by the feed composition and reaction heat evolved (the adiabatic temperature rise)[4]. The thermodynamic equilibrium restrictions on the operational parameters have beenoutlined on the base of the numerical simulations.589