Control Design of Ethanol Steam Reforming in Thermal Plasma Reformer

This paper presents a design for mass flow rates control of ethanol/water and temperature control of the 1 kWe thermal plasma reformer, which uses ethanol steam reforming method to perform hydrogen production. A thermodynamic equilibrium prediction is firstly performed to obtain an optimal working condition at temperature of 750degC and at mole flow rate ratio of ethanol to water of 1:3. The mass flow rates of ethanol and water are then controlled to meet the requirement of hydrogen production at 30SLPM. Finally, with energy balance equation, the temperature control is designed using electric power to maintain the thermal plasma reformer at working temperature of 750degC and desired inlet mass flow rate of fuel and water. Both mass flow rate and temperature controls are implemented in an electric control unit with a PID control law. The experimental data, which are collected from the 1 kWe thermal plasma reformer at Clean Energy R&D Center, Da-Yeh University, Taiwan, R.O.C., are compared with the predicted data. The results show that they approximately fit in with each other at temperature of 750degC under the ethanol/water mole flow rate of 1:3.