• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.277-285
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• 2001

We developed a compact, 10 kWe, purifier-integrated reformer which supplies hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles. Our proprietary technologies regarding hydrogen purification by palladium alloy membrane and catalytic combustion by noble metal coated wire-mesh catalyst were combined with the conventional methanol steam reforming technology, resulting in higher conversion, excellent quality of product hydrogen, and better thermal efficiency than any other systems. In this system, steam reforming, hydrogen purification, and catalytic combustion take place all in a single reactor so that the whole system is compact and easy to operate. The module produces $8.2Nm^3/hr$ of 99.999% or higher purity hydrogen with CO impurity less than 10 ppm, which is equivalent to 10 kWe when PEMFC has 45 % efficiency. Thermal efficiency of the module is 81 % and the power density of the module is 1.6 L/kWe. As the results of experiments, cold-start time has been measured about 20 minutes. Response time of hydrogen production to the change of the feed rate has been within 1 minutes.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.8-14
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• 2009

Dimethyl ether(DME) was synthesized from synthesis gas by a one-step process in which a hybrid catalyst was used. The hybrid catalyst consisted of Cu-ZnO-$Al_2O_3$ for the methanol synthesis reaction and aluminum phosphate or $H_3PO_4$-modified $\gamma$-alumina for the methanol dehydration reaction. The prepared catalysts were characterized by XRD, BET, SEM, FT-IR and $NH_3$-TPD. From the XRD analysis, it was verified that the aluminum phosphate was successfully synthesized. The specific surface areas of the synthesized aluminum phosphates were varied with the ratio of P/Al. The hybrid catalyst in which P/Al ratio of the aluminum phosphate was 1.2 showed the highest CO conversion of 55% and DME selectivity of 70%. There was no remarkable decrease in catalytic activity with the phosphoric acid treatment of $\gamma$-alumina. However, when treated with concentrated phosphoric acid(85%), the catalytic activity and DME selectivity decreased.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.65-71
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• 1996

Decomposition reaction of methanol was conducted on Ni-Cu/SiO$_2$catalysts with several variables. Variables used in this study are S.V(Space Velocity), partial pressure of methanol, reaction temperature, and composition rate of Ni-Cu. The range of S.V is 10,000-30,000h$\^$-1/, the temperature range is 150-400$^{\circ}C$ and values of Cu/(Ni＋Cu) are 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 1. Over Ni/SiO$_2$, and Ni-Cu/SiO$_2$, the conversion rate of decomposition reaction of methanol arrived at 100% with increasing of temperature. At this time the selectivity of CO on Ni/SiO$_2$, was suddenly decreased, but on Ni-Cu/SiO$_2$, it was still sustained highly. The main products of reaction were CO and H$_2$, and by-products were CO$_2$ and CH$_4$mainly.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.78-85
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• 2023

Fixed-bed reactor Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation of methanol steam reforming reaction was performed using the intrinsic kinetic data of the copper-impregnated hydrotalcite catalyst. The activation energy of the copper hydrotalcite catalyst obtained from the previous study results was 97.4 kJ/mol, and the pre-exponential was 5.904 × 10¹⁰. Process simulation was performed using the calculated values and showed a similar tendency to the experimental results. And the conversion rate according to the change of the reaction temperature (200 - 450 ℃) and the molar ratio of methanol and water was observed using the intrinsic kinetic data. In addition, mass and heat transfer phenomena analysis of a commercial reactor (I.D. 0.05 - 0.1m, Length 1m) was predicted through axial 2D Symmetry simulation using the power law model of the above kinetic constants.

• Clean Technology
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.102-110
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• 2012

In this study, the production of bio-diesel from animal oil by esterification and trans-esterification was investigated. There were three different extraction methods for oil extraction from raw animal fat. Heterogeneous catalysts such as Amberlyst-15 and Amberlyst BD-20 and a homogeneous catalyst such as sulfuric acid were used for esterification. Among three catalysts, the removal efficiency of Free Fatty Acid (FFA) was the highest in sulfuric acid. Response surface method was carried out to find the optimal esterification condition of sulfuric acid and methanol. After the esterification under the optimal condition, this animal fat was used for the trans-esterification. Animal oil used for trans-esterification was below 1% of FFA content and 0.09% of water content. The catalysts for trans-esterification were KOH, NaOH and $NaOCH_3$. To investigate the effects of catalyst type and amount on trans-esterification, The amount of catalyst were changed with 0.3, 0.6 and 0.9 wt%. The molar ratio of methanol/oil was changed with 4, 6, 9 and 12. The amount of catalyst was fixed to 0.8 wt%. The KOH catalyst showed the highest FAME conversion for trans- esterification, and the optimal methanol/oil weight ratio was 6. In the experiments of various catalysts and methanol molar ratios, the highest content of FAME is 96%. However, this FAME content was below Korean bio-diesel standard which is 96.5% of FAME content. After distillation, FAME content increased to 98%.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.117-123
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• 1999

This work was focused on the synthesis and their catalytic performance on microporous materials having various pore types and dimensions in structures, such as the SAPO-34 and the SAPO-44 with CHA type, the SAPO-17 with ERI type of three dimensional structures, and the ZSM-23 with MTT type of one dimensional structure. Synthesized materials exhibited various acidities and the selectivities to olefin in methanol conversion. As a result, the order of their acid strength was as follows; SAPO-44>SAPO-34>SAPO-17>ZSM-5. On the other hand, the CHA type materials, such as SAPO-34 and SAPO-44, had high selectivity to light olefins(ethylene or propylene), and ZSM-23 with MTT typ of one dimensional structure showed high selectivity to paraffins over $\textrm{C}_{5}$~. This result is a proof that the structure in material had strong influence on catalytic performance. In addition, a surprising result is that the catalytic selectivity to ethylene enhanced on Ni-corporated materials compared with the non-corporated.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.380-389
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• 2020

The conversion characteristics and fuel properties for producing biodiesel (BD) by blending beef-tallow, an animal waste resource with a high-saturated fatty acid content, and sunflower-oil, a vegetable oil with a high-unsaturated fatty acid content, were investigated. For this investigation, the effects of the control factors, such as the oil-blend ratio and methanol-to-oil molar ratio, on the fatty acid methyl ester and BD production yield were also investigated. The kinematic viscosity reduction effects of BD using heating and ultrasonic irradiation were verified, and the optimal temperature of each BD-diesel fuel blend for reducing the kinematic viscosity was derived using the correlation equation. As a result, the optimal conditions for producing blended biodiesel were verified to be TASU7 and a methanol-to-oil molar ratio of 10:1. The analysis results of the fuel properties of TASU7 satisfied the BD quality standard; hence, the viability of BD blended with waste tallow as fuel was verified. The experimental results on the kinematic viscosity reduction showed that heating is more effective in reducing the kinematic viscosity because it took less time than ultrasonic irradiation, and the equipment was cheaper and more straightforward than the ultrasonic irradiation method.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.243-249
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• 2005

Esterification of lactic acid with alcohols catalyzed by Amberlyst-type ion exchange resins and sulfuric acid was carried out in a batch reactor with total /or partial recycle of distilled condensates, respectively. The esterification of lactic acid in the total-recycling reactor (n-butanol/lactic acid = 4, $100^{\circ}C$) was promoted by decreasing the residual water and increasing the mole ratio of n-butanol/lactic acid. Also, it was confirmed that methanol with simple structure and tert-butanol with superior substitution reactivity were more effective in increasing the conversion of esterification reaction, compared to ethanol, n-butanol, and iso-butanol. In a partial-recycling reactor (n-butanol/ammonium lactate = 4, $115^{\circ}C$), the conversion of ammonium lactate into butyl lactate with 1.0 wt% Amberyst-type resins was higher in comparison to that with 0.2 mol $H_2SO_4$ (per 1.0 mol ammonium lactate). The esterification was gradually occurred during the initial stage of reaction in the presence of solid catalyst, whereas the initial addition of $H_2SO_4$ did not affect the initial rate of esterification reaction because of ammonium sulfate formation by the neutralizing reaction of ammonium lactate with sulfuric acid.

• Clean Technology
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.329-335
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• 2020

Methanol synthesized from renewable hydrogen and captured CO2 has recently attracted great interest as a sustainable energy carrier for large-scale renewable energy storage. In this study, molten carbonate fuel cell's performance was investigated with the direct conversion of methanol into syngas inside the anode chamber of the cell. The internal reforming of methanol may significantly improve system efficiency since the heat generated from the electrochemical reaction can be used directly for the endothermic reforming reaction. The porous Ni-10 wt%Cr anode was sufficient for the methanol steam reforming reaction under the fuel cell operating condition. The direct supply of methanol into the anode chamber resulted in somewhat lower cell performance, especially at high current density. Recycling of the product gas into the anode gas inlet significantly improved the cell performance. The analysis based on material balance revealed that, with increasing current density and gas recycling ratio, the methanol steam reforming reaction rate likewise increased. A methanol conversion more significant than 90% was achieved with gas recycling. The results showed the feasibility of electricity and syngas co-production using the molten carbonate fuel cell. Further research is needed to optimize the fuel cell operating conditions for simultaneous production of electricity and syngas, considering both material and energy balances in the fuel cell.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.589-593
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• 2007

재생 가능한 자원인 동식물성 기름을 원료로 제조되는 수송용 연료 바이오디젤은 낮은 대기오염물질 배출과 $CO_2$ Neutral 특성으로 환경친화적인 연료로 인정을 받으며 전세계적으로 그 생산량이 급격히 증가하고 있다. 대부분의 상용화 공정은 염기촉매를 이용한 전이에스테르화 반응에 근거하고 있으며 높은 생산성을 위해 연속 공정을 채택하고 있다. 원료유 중의 유리지방산(free fatty acid, FFA)은 염기 촉매와 반응하여 지방산염(Soap)과 수분을 생성하며 반응촉매의 투입양을 증가시카고 반응 후에 글리세롤과 지방산 메틸에스테르와의 분리를 어렵게 만든다. 높은 수율과 후속공정의 부하를 줄이기 위해서는 식물성 원료유 중의 FFA는 고체 산촉매 하에서 메탄올과 에스테르화 반응시켜 전환 제거되어야 한다. 본 연구에서는 고체산 촉매인 Amberlyst-15을 충전한 4단 PBR(Packed Bed Reactor, 충전율 60%(v/v))에서 반응시간과 반응온도에 따른 대두원유의 전처리 효율을 조사하였으며 최적 전처리 조건을 도출하였다. 최적 전처리 조건에서 대두원유는 초기 산가 1.6에서 0.4-0.6으로 연속 전처리할 수 있었다. 본 연구에서는 연속 흐름 반응기인 PFR(Plug Flow Reactor)와 4단 CSTR(Continuous Stirred Tank Reactor)에서 균질계 촉매인 KOH 존재하에 대두유와 메탄올과의 전이에스테르화 반응 특성을 조사하였으며 각 연속 반응시스템에서 최적 운전 조건을 도출하였다. PFR 반응기에서 반응온도, 반응시간, 반응물 흐름방향, static mixer(SM) 개수에 따른 반응특성을 조사한 결과, PFR에서의 최적 반응조건은 하향류 흐름 방향과 3개의 SM를 설치한 조건에서 반응시간 5.8분, 반응온도 90$^{\cdot}C$, 메탄올:오일 몰비 9:1, KOH 농도 0.8%로 도출되었다. CSTR 반응기에서는 반응온도와 체류시간에 따른 반응특성을 조사하였으며 최적반응 조건으로 반응온도 80$^{\cdot}C$, 메탄올/오일 몰비 9:1, KOH 농도 0.8%, 체류시간 18.4분, 교반속도 250rpm로 조사되었다.