Integration of gasoline prereforming into autothermal reforming for hydrogen production

An integrated process for hydrogen production which couples gasoline prereforming and autothermal reforming (ATR) over nickel-based catalysts was investigated using stainless steel fixed-bed reactors. Meanwhile the integrated process was compared with the gasoline ATR process without prereforming. The results indicate that in the gasoline ATR process without prereforming, the nickel-based ATR catalyst deposited with coke after short reaction time-on-stream under the following working conditions (T = 770 degrees C, P = 5.0 bar, steam-to-carbon feed ratio (S/C, mol/mol) of 2.7, oxygen-to-carbon feed ratio (O-2/C) of 0.5 and gas hourly space velocity (GHSV) of 28,000 ml g(-1) h(-1)). Quite the contrary, in the integrated process, almost 100% gasoline conversion and 99.4% selectivity to hydrogen were obtained and maintained well under similar working conditions during 100 h reaction time-on-stream. Actually, almost coke-free operation of the process was achieved, which was confirmed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and O-2-TPSR characterizations of the used ATR catalyst. Reformate that contains no light alkenes or other higher hydrocarbons could be obtained from the ATR reactor. In addition, the nickel-based prereforming catalyst prepared by a coprecipitation method had high catalytic activity and promising stability. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.