Intensification of hydrogen production by methanol steam reforming

This paper studies the methanol steam reforming intensification to enhance the hydrogen production in a multi-channel block type micro-reformer. The effects of operating parameters such as reforming temperature, space velocity and catalyst layer thickness on reforming performance are investigated. For optimized design and operating conditions, the 8 cm³ reformer unit produced 170 LH₂/h containing on dry basis 75.0% H₂, 23.5% CO₂, 0.06% CH₃OH and 1.44% CO at 648 K allowing the production of 218-255 W in a commercial PEMFC with 80% hydrogen utilization. This study shows that high methanol conversion can be achieved with high Pd/ZnO catalyst loading at 648 K with very low CO content (<1.5%) in the outlet stream.