Thermodynamic analysis of adsorption enhanced reforming of ethanol

Adsorption enhanced reforming (AER) is a novel hydrogen generation method. To study hydrogen yield and graphite formation in the AER process, a recently developed thermodynamic code for reaction–adsorption systems is extended to account for the formation of condensed species. Parametric analysis of the steam reforming of ethanol is performed to study the effect of adsorption and other parameters (temperature, pressure, steam/carbon ratio and O2/ethanol ratio in the feed) on the yield of hydrogen and the formation of graphite. It is shown that with CO2 adsorption, the hydrogen yield is enhanced while the graphite formation is suppressed. Based on the thermodynamic analysis, AER is a potential low-temperature method for hydrogen generation.