• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
• /
• v.18 no.6
• /
• pp.618-624
• /
• 2007

thermochemical methane reforming consisting of two steps on Cu/Fe/Zr mixed oxide media was carried out using a fixed bed infrared reactor. In the first step, the metal oxide was reduced with methane to produce CO, $H_2$ and the reduced metal oxide in the temperature of 1173 K. In the second step, the reduced metal oxide was re-oxidized with steam to produce $H_2$ and the metal oxide in the temperature of 973 K. The reaction characteristics on the added amounts of Cu in Cu/Fe/Zr mixed oxide media and the cyclic tests were evaluated. With the increase of the added amount of Cu in Cu/Fe/Zr mixed oxide media, the conversion of $CH_4$, the selectivity of $CO_2$ and the $H_2/CO$ molar ratio were increased, while the selectivity of CO was decreased in the first step. On the other hand, the evolved amount of $H_2$ was decreased with increasing the added amount of Cu in the second step. The $Cu_xFe_{3-x}O_4/ZrO_2$ medium added with Cu of x = 0.7 showed good regeneration properties in the 10th cyclic tests indicating that the medium had high durability. In addition, the gasification of the deposited carbon in the water splitting step was promoted with the addition of Cu in the media.