Faithin Omaha eBook Collection

Download or read book Hydrogen-rich Gas Production from Plasmatron Reforming of Biofuels written by Kamal Hadidi and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 10 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bio-mass, as a renewable resource can potentially be converted into economically attractive fuels for transportation uses. Several processes have been considered for the reformation of biomass into hydrogen. They include fast pyrolysis, catalytic steam reforming, catalytic pyrolysis and supercritical water reforming. However, these technologies can not be used for onboard applications. An alternative approach is to use on-board generation of hydrogen. The plasmatron technology being developed at MIT for reformation of a wide range of fuels into synthesis gas (hydrogen and carbon monoxide) uses special low current plasmas. Vegetable oils and ethanol have been used in a plasmatron reformer to generate synthesis gas. Corn, canola, and soybean oils and ethanol have been reformed at different oxygen to carbon ratios and at power levels of 700 and 200 watts with a frequency of 200 to 260 kHz. In the case of ethanol, some of the oxygen required for the reformation is provided by the fuel itself. Both homogeneous plasma reforming (non-catalytic) and catalytic plasma reformer have been evaluated. Hydrogen yields of close to 80% have been achieved during catalytic reformation of corn and soybean oils and ethanol. Canola oil catalytic reformation yielded 60% of hydrogen. Other major compounds of the reformat gas are carbon monoxide and light hydrocarbons such as CH4 and C2H4.