Hydrogen production via acetic acid steam reforming reaction using membrane reactors

In the last years, hydrogen production from biomass transformation is resulted very attractive. Particularly interesting are methods in which the biomass is converted into intermediate liquid bio-fuels such as pyrolysis oil, acetic acid or ethanol. Among various renewable sources, acetic acid may be easily produced by fermentation of biomass. Furthermore, acetic acid, unlike methanol and ethanol, is not inflammable and, as a consequence, it represents a safe hydrogen carrier. In particular, acetic acid may be easily transformed into hydrogen with high selectivity over effective catalysts such as Ni-Co and Ru. However, to the best of our knowledge a restricted literature is noticeable on hydrogen production from acetic acid and only a few manuscripts deal with conventional reactors usually operating at temperature higher than 500 °C. In these studies, acetic acid steam reforming reaction is carried out using different catalysts and a hydrogen rich-gas stream is produced, containing secondary products such as CO2, CO, CH4, etc. Therefore, with the purpose of producing COx-free hydrogen for PEM fuel cell applications, the hydrogen rich-gas stream needs to be purified. This chapter is aimed to study the utilization of inorganic membrane reactor technology for producing COx-free hydrogen in only one step from acetic acid steam reforming instead of the conventional reactors followed by further stages for hydrogen purification such as water gas shift reactors (high and low temperature), partial oxidation reactors and pressure swing adsorption devices.