Increasing carbon emissions and insecurities in oil supply have led to heightened interest in hydrogen powered fuel cells. Preferably, the cell runs on hydrogen gas, though due to the sensitivity of the catalytic components in the fuel cell to carbon monoxide, the hydrogen must be extremely pure (typically <50 ppm CO). Due to a lack of hydrogen infrastructure, it is envisaged that a medium term solution will be the reforming of more conventional fuels such as gasoline. The gas mixture produced however, contains impurities such as CO, CO<sub>2</sub> and CH<sub>4</sub>. Purification may be achieved using palladium membranes, which allow selective permeation of hydrogen. This thesis describes the research carried out in conjunction with Johnson Matthey on thin (typically 7.5 μm) palladium/silver alloy membranes supported on both ceramic and stainless steel porous tubular substrates. Extensive experimental flow testing has been performed to assess the effect of temperature, feed composition, including wet feeds, and membrane thickness on the hydrogen purification properties. An existing Fortran based model was validated and revised to accurately account for the effects of operating conditions such as temperature and carbon monoxide concentration. This work provided excellent correlation between experimental and simulated results. The validated and improved model was incorporated in the design of a hydrogen refuelling station in Aspen Plus and the palladium membrane requirements assessed to supply 650 fuel cell vehicles per day. The system incorporated a steam reformer, membrane clean-up module, water trap and high pressure compressor for hydrogen storage at 1000 bara. Operating conditions such as system pressure, fuel feed and steam to carbon ratio were investigated and adjusted to optimise the overall system efficiency. An efficiency of 52% was achieved with a steam to carbon ratio of SCR = 2.5. A membrane requirement of 6000 standard tubes was found to provide a 90% hydrogen recovery efficiency.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:409029 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | Lloyd, Robin Jonathan |
| Contributors | Stone, Richard |
| Publisher | University of Oxford |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:8732ee9a-baf4-40b4-8c42-52b5eab7b944 |
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