Abstract
In the present study, we examine the dominant chemical reactions and the optimal conditions, assuming the design of ethanol-steam-reforming reactors. Experiments are performed for two catalysts, Cu/ZnO/Al2O3 and Ru/Al2O3. Using a household-use-scale reactor with well-controlled temperature distributions, we compare experimental results with chemical-equilibrium theories. As a result, the Cu/ZnO/Al2O3 catalyst shows rather high performance at low-reaction-temperature T, which suggests that the Cu/ZnO/Al2O3 catalyst promotes the ethanol-steam-reforming and the water-gas shift reactions, but does not promote the methanation reaction. On the other hand, high-reaction-temperature-type catalysts, such as Ru/Al2O3, promote all the three at high T. Furthermore, we specify the effect of the steam-carbon molar ratio S/C on the hydrogen concentration CH2 and the effect of T on CH2 for each catalyst.
