Alcohols and bio-alcohols steam and autothermal reforming in a membrane reactor

Considerable work has been reported concerning catalytic steam reforming, partial oxidation and oxidative steam reforming (autothermal reforming) aimed at hydrogen generation from alcohol-water mixtures. They include methanol, ethanol, glycerol, and the exploitiation of renewable bio-alcohols. The use of catalytic membrane reactors, with simultaneous generation and separation of hydrogen, appears as an attractive approach to optimize downstream separation and to substantially simplify on-site/on-demand alcohol reformers. Catalytic membrane reactors reduce capital costs by combining the reforming process and hydrogen separation in one system, allow an enhancement of the alcohol conversion of the equilibrium-limited reforming processes, and are able to directly produce a high purity hydrogen stream for feeding fuel cells if dense Pd-based membranes are used.