Methanol steam reforming in a microchannel reactor coated with spray pyrolysis method for durable Cu/ZnO nanocatalyst

Abstract

In this study, hydrogen production was carried out in microreactor by methanol steam reforming process. Electro etching method was used to obtain microchannels with different channel width and depth. Although there are different traditional methods for the catalyst to be used in hydrogen production, the spray pyrolysis method was chosen due to its many advantages. This method is a very effective and innovative when it is considered that microreactors are coated for hydrogen production. The system for spray pyrolysis coating was designed and setup. Thanks to this method, the coating of the reactor with nanocatalyst was carried out in a single step. Synthesis and coating with spray pyrolysis in a single step provided some advantages in terms of coating quality as well as saving time besides the durability tested by ultrasound experiments. In the last stage of the study, a methanol steam reforming system was setup to carry out the experiments in a catalyst-coated microreactor. Hydrogen production was carried out different steams / carbon ratios, different reactor temperatures, different feed rates. As a result, 94 % methanol conversion, 3% CO and 69 % H2 content were obtained for 275 °C reactor temperature, 1.8 steam/carbon (S/C) ratio and 0.02 cm3/min feed rate. In the literature, there are similar results in transformation and H2 selectivity. However, in this study, the synthesis and coating with catalyst spray pyrolysis in one step provided both financial and time advantages.