Combined production and purification of hydrogen from methanol using steam iron process in fixed bed reactor

Abstract

A research work is being conducted to study the combined production and purification of hydrogen by means of redox processes departing from biomass fast pyrolysis oils (bio-oils). To achieve that goal, methanol has been used as featured material because it is the most representative compound of the alcoholic fraction of bio-oils. The study has been carried out in a fixed bed reactor where methanol decomposes in H2 and CO when gets in contact with a reactive solid based in an iron oxide at temperatures above 600 °C. During the first stage of the “steam–iron” process, reactive gases reduce the iron oxide to metallic iron. Afterward, in a following step, the previously reduced iron is reoxidized by steam producing a high purity hydrogen stream. Although coke deposition does exist during the reducing stage, this behaves as inert during the reoxidation process. Coke inert role has been corroborated by GC, SEM and TEM techniques, showing that carbon deposits were constituted by ordered structures (carbon nanotubes). The determination of the hydrogen production along successive cycles allowed the evaluation of the effect of temperature and alternating reactive atmospheres on the stability of the solid, as well as the optimum conditions for such purpose.