Preparation of Purified Hydrogen by Selective Hydrogenation of Carbon Monoxide in a Mixture of Steam Reforming Products of Organic Substrates Using a Membrane Catalytic Reactor

Abstract

The scientific basis has been developed for the production of purified hydrogen via the hydrogenation of CO formed by the steam reforming of fermentation products in a porous Ni(Al)–Co converter made by self-propagating high-temperature synthesis. It has been shown that the rate of CO hydrogenation in catalytic channels of the converter is higher by a factor of 3–3.5 than the rate achieved in a flow reactor with a fixed bed of a granular catalyst of the same composition. If the steam reforming processes with an H2O/organic substrate ratio of ~15–20 are self-consistent with the subsequent hydrogenation of carbon monoxide by the “intrinsic” hydrogen, the carbon monoxide conversion per pass at 300°C is 97.5% with a residual CO content in the gas of ≤0.1%. The approach considered in the paper is promising for producing hydrogen as a fuel for medium-temperature fuel cells.