Glycerol steam reforming in a bench scale continuous flow heat recovery reactor

• Autor(a) principal: Bueno, André Valente
• Data de Publicação: 2013
• Outros Autores: Oliveira, Mona Lisa Moura de
• Tipo de documento: Artigo de conferência
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da Universidade Federal do Ceará (UFC)
• Texto Completo: http://www.repositorio.ufc.br/handle/riufc/61294
• topic: Biodiesel; Glycerol; Steam reforming; Heat recovery reactor

In the present study glycerol was successfully gasified using a diesel engine waste heat recovery system obtaining hydrogen and methane rich gaseous products. The reforming reactor was equipped with a vaporization pre-chamber to ensure uniform reactants distribution and a fixed reaction bed, being mounted in countercurrent flow configuration with the engine combustion gases stream. Accordingly, the reactions were conducted at gradually increased temperature conditions; starting at around 300 C in the top section of the reaction bed and finishing in a controlled outlet bed temperature of 600e800 C. When compared to homogeneous temperature reactors, the configuration used here produced a syngas of higher methane and ethylene contents. With regards to the reactor performance, syngas lower heat values of more than 22 MJ/kg were achieved with glycerol feed concentrations within 50e70% and outlet bed temperatures above 700 C, corresponding to cold gas efficiencies of around 85%. The present results indicate that glycerin can be utilized as a syngas feedstock for steam reforming processes based on waste heat recovery.