• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.119-126
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• 2002

The methanol partial oxidation using commercial $CuO/ZnO/Al_2O_3$ catalysts in a plug flow reactor was studied in the temperature range of $200{\sim}250^{\circ}C$ at atmospheric pressure, It was achieved the high activities by Cu-based catalysts and the selectivity of $CO_2$/$H_2$ was 100% when $O_2$ was fully convened. The reactivity changes and their hysteresis with increasing/decreasing temperatures were observed due to the chemical state differences between the oxidation and the reduction on the Cu surface, It was suggested as the two-step reaction: the complete oxidation and the following steam reforming for methanol, which was indicated by the distributions of final products vs. the residence time. In addition, the complete oxidation step was shown to be extremely fast and the total reaction rate can be controlled by the steam reforming reaction.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.21-27
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• 2011

The comparison work was conducted for the methanol steam reforming among commercial Cu-based catalysts, viz. ICI-M45, which is for the methanol synthesis, MDC-3 and MDC-7, which are for the water-gas shift reaction. The catalytic activity for the water-gas shift reaction was also compared over three catalysts. Among them, MDC-7 showed the highest methanol conversion and formation rate of hydrogen and carbon dioxide at 473 K for the methanol steam reforming. To find out any promotional effect between ICI-M45 and MDC-7, three different packing methods with these two catalysts were examined. However, no synergistic effect was observed. The catalytic activity for watergas shift reaction decreased in the following order: MDC-7 > MDC-3 > ICI-M45. The highest activity of MDC-7 for the methanol steam reforming as well as the water-gas shift reaction can be due to its high surface area, copper dispersion, and an adequate Cu/Zn ratio.

• Carbon letters
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.303-307
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• 2008

The studies on integrated operation of fuel cell with fuel processor are very essential prior to its commercialization. In this study, Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) was operated with a fuel processor, which is mainly composed of two parts, methanol steam reforming reaction and preferential oxidation (PROX). In fuel processor, ICI 33-5 (CuO 50%, ZnO 33%, $Al_2O_3$ 8%, BET surface area: $66\;m^2g^{-1}$) catalyst and CuO-$CeO_2$ catalyst were used for methanol steam reforming, preferential oxidation (PROX) respectively. PEMFC was operated by hydrogen fuel generated from fuel processor. The resulting gas from PROX reactor is used to operate PEMFC equipped with our prepared anode and cathode catalyst. PtRu/C catalyst gives more tolerance to CO.

• 한국전기화학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2001.06a
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• pp.161-166
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• 2001

• 한국전기화학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.06a
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• pp.115-118
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• 2004

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.16-21
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• 2022

The reaction rate of a catalyst for producing hydrogen using the methanol steam reforming reaction was studied. It was prepared by impregnating copper, which is often used in methanol synthesis, as the main active metal, using hydrotalcite, which has excellent porosity and thermal stability, high specific surface area, weak Lewis acid point, and basicity, as a support. Activation energy and Pre-exponential factors were identified. In this study, the activation energy of the hydrotalcite catalyst impregnated with 20 wt% copper was calculated to be 97.4 kJ/mol and the Pre-exponential was 5.904 × 10¹⁰. Process simulation was performed using the calculated values and showed a similar tendency to the experimental results.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.78-85
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• 2023

Fixed-bed reactor Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation of methanol steam reforming reaction was performed using the intrinsic kinetic data of the copper-impregnated hydrotalcite catalyst. The activation energy of the copper hydrotalcite catalyst obtained from the previous study results was 97.4 kJ/mol, and the pre-exponential was 5.904 × 10¹⁰. Process simulation was performed using the calculated values and showed a similar tendency to the experimental results. And the conversion rate according to the change of the reaction temperature (200 - 450 ℃) and the molar ratio of methanol and water was observed using the intrinsic kinetic data. In addition, mass and heat transfer phenomena analysis of a commercial reactor (I.D. 0.05 - 0.1m, Length 1m) was predicted through axial 2D Symmetry simulation using the power law model of the above kinetic constants.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.261-269
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• 2015

In this study, numerical analysis of curved channel steam-methanol reformer was conducted using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) commercial code STAR-CCM. A pre-numerical analysis of reference model with a cylindrical channel reactor was performed to validate the combustion model of the CFD commercial code. The result of advance validation was in agreement with reference model over 95%. After completing the validation, a curved channel reactor was designed to determine the effects of shape and length of flow path on methanol conversion efficiency and generation of hydrogen. Numerical analysis of the curved-channel reformer was conducted under various flow rate ($10/15/20{\mu}l/min$). As a result, the characteristics of flow and mass transfer were confirmed in the cylindrical channel and curved channel reactor, and useful information about methanol conversion efficiency and hydrogen generation was obtained for various flow rate.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.146-152
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• 2016

A combined system with PEMFC and reformer is introduced and optimized for the real use of this kind of system in the future. The hydrogen source to operate the PEMFC system is methanol, which needs two parts of methanol reforming reaction and preferential oxidation (PROX) for the hydrogen fuel process in the combined operation PEMFC system. With the optimized methanol steam reforming condition, we tested PROX reactions in various operation temperature from 170 to 270 ℃ to investigate CO concentration data in the reformed gases. Using these different CO concentration, PEMFC performances are achieved at the combined system. Pt/C and Ru promoted Pt/C were catalysts were used for the anode to compare the stability in CO contained gases. The alloy catalyst of PtRu/C shows higher performance and better resistance to CO than the Pt/C at even high CO amount of 200 ppm, indicating a promotion not only to the activity but also to the CO tolerance. Furthermore, in a system point of view, there is a fluctuation in the PEMFC operation due to the unstable fuel supply. Therefore, we also modified the methanol reforming by a scaled up reactor and pressurization to produce steady operation of PEMFC. The optimized system with the methanol reformer and PEMFC shows a stable performance for a long time, which is providing a valuable data for the PEMFC commercialization.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.411-418
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• 2020

A reformer is a device for producing hydrogen used in fuel cells. Among them, methanol steam reformer uses methanol as fuel, which is present as a liquid at room temperature. It has the advantage of low operating temperature, high energy density, and high hydrogen production. The purpose of this study is to improve the internal flow of the pressure vessel when a bundle of methanol steam reformer in the pressure vessel goes out to a single outlet. An analysis of equilibrium reaction to methanol steam reforming reaction was conducted using Aspen HYSYS^® (Aspen Technology Inc., Bedford, USA), and based on the results, computational analysis was conducted using ANSYS Fluent^® (ANSYS, Inc., Canonsburg, USA). For comparison of the results, the height of the pressure vessel, outlet diameter, and fillet was set as variables, and the optimum geometry was selected by comparing the effects of gravity and the amount of negative pressure.