Water Gas Shift Catalysts for H2 Production in Membrane Reactors

using a compact membrane reactor architecture 1 . Consequently United Technologies Research Center (UTRC) is developing integrated Pd Membrane reactors for H2 production through reforming of fossil fuels and the subsequent conversion of the CO in the reformate to hydrogen through the Water Gas Shift (WGS) Reaction. This not only allows the shifting of the WGS equilibrium through H2 removal but it greatly simplifies the system design by eliminating all the other reactors, as well as a major part of the multiple heat exchangers and the air mixers down steam of the reactor that they are integrated with in the traditional fuel processing system for H2 generation. Metal supported tubular Pd membranes have high modularity and thus can be easily scaled up to any system capacity while they do not employ components with low reliability like frequently actuated rotating valves. This approach results in significant system cost savings and controls simplicity (thus higher system reliability) due to system and system controls simplification through component elimination. These are significant advantages over the currently applied and more mature technology for H2 production, the Pressure Swing Adsorption. However this approach requires cost effective, air tolerant catalysts with high volumetric activity and high stability