Selective CO Methanation in H₂-Rich Gas for Household Fuel Cell Applications

Title data

Garbis, Panagiota Katherina ; Jess, Andreas:
Selective CO Methanation in H₂-Rich Gas for Household Fuel Cell Applications.
In: Energies. Vol. 13 (2020) Issue 11 . - No. 2844.
ISSN 1996-1073
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/en13112844

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Abstract in another language

Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) are often used for household applications, utilizing hydrogen produced from natural gas from the gas grid. The hydrogen is thereby produced by steam reforming of natural gas followed by a water gas shift (WGS) unit. The H2-rich gas contains besides CO2 small amounts of CO, which deactivates the catalyst used in the PEMFCs. Preferential oxidation has so far been a reliable process to reduce this concentration but valuable H2 is also partly converted. Selective CO methanation considered as an attractive alternative. However, CO2 methanation consuming the valuable H2 has to be minimized. The modelling of selective CO methanation in a household fuel cell system is presented. The simulation was conducted for single and two-stage adiabatic fixed bed reactors (in the latter case with intermediate cooling), and the best operating conditions to achieve the required residual CO content (100 ppm) were calculated. This was done by varying the gas inlet temperature as well as the mass of the catalyst. The feed gas represented a reformate gas downstream of a typical WGS reaction unit (0.5%–1% CO, 10%–25% CO2, and 5%–20% H2O (rest H2)).