Evaluation of the feasibility of ethanol steam reforming in a molten carbonate fuel cell

Technical Report · Tue Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1996

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/460262· OSTI ID:460262

Cavallaro, S. ^[1]; Passalacqua, E.; Maggio, G.; Patti, A.; Freni, S. ^[2]

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1. Universita di Messina (Italy)
2. Istituto CNR-TAE, Messina (Italy)

The molten carbonate fuel cells (MCFCs) utilizing traditional fuels represent a suitable technological progress in comparison with pure hydrogen-fed MCFCs. The more investigated fuel for such an application is the methane, which has the advantages of low cost and large availability; besides, several authors demonstrated the feasibility of a methane based MCFC. In particular, the methane steam-reforming allows the conversion of the fuel in hydrogen also inside the cell (internal reforming configuration), utilizing the excess heat to compensate the reaction endothermicity. In this case, however, both the catalyst and the cell materials are subjected to thermal stresses due to the cold spots arising near to the reaction sites MCFC. An alternative, in accordance with the recent proposals of other authors, may be to produce hydrogen from methane by the partial oxidation reaction, rather than by steam reforming. This reaction is exothermic ({Delta}H{degrees}=-19.1 kJ/mol H{sub 2}) and it needs to verify the possibility to obtain an acceptable distribution of the temperature inside the cell. The alcohols and, in particular, methanol shows the gas reformed compositions as a function of the steam/ethanol molar ratio, ranging from 1.0 to 3.5. The hydrogen production enhances with this ratio, but it presents a maximum at S/EtOH of about 2.0. Otherwise, the increase of S/EtOH depresses the production of CO and CH{sub 4}, and ethanol may be a further solution for the hydrogen production inside a MCFC. In this case, also, the reaction in cell is less endothermic compared with the methane steam reforming with the additional advantage of a liquid fuel more easily storable and transportable. Aim of the present work is to perform a comparative evaluation of the different solutions, with particular reference to the use of ethanol.

• Research Organization: Fuel Cell Seminar Organizing Committee (United States)
• OSTI ID: 460262
• Report Number(s): CONF-961107--Absts.; ON: TI97001494
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
CONFIGURATION
ETHANOL
HYDROGEN PRODUCTION
METHANE
METHANOL
MOLTEN CARBONATE FUEL CELLS
PARTIAL OXIDATION PROCESSES
STEAM REFORMER PROCESSES
TEMPERATURE DISTRIBUTION
THERMAL STRESSES
THERMODYNAMICS