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Hydrogen & Clean Fuels - Abstract
Conducting the Homogenous Water-Gas Shift Reaction in a Palladium-Copper Alloy Membrane Reactor at High Temperature and Pressure
The US DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory, NETL, is investigating the potential of producing hydrogen from coal in order to fuel the hydrogen economy. One concept under consideration is the use of a palladium-based membrane reactor in a coal gasification facility. The CO-rich gasifier effluent would be directed to the membrane reactor inlet, where it would be combined with high pressure steam. The CO and H2O would convert to CO2 and H2 via the water-gas shift reaction (WGSR). The H2 would dissociate into atoms at the palladium surface, diffuse through the palladium film, re-associate into H2 at the opposite palladium surface, and flow into the permeate stream. This removal of hydrogen from the gas-phase reaction mixture would enhance the conversion of CO to levels that would exceed conversion under comparable conditions in a conventional reactor (Enick et al., 2000). Because hydrogen alone would permeate a defect-free, dense palladium film and thereby drive the WGSR to essentially complete conversion, the retentate effluent would be a high pressure CO2-rich stream suitable for sequestration while the permeate effluent would be a high purity, low pressure hydrogen stream.
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Deepwater Technology