Methane steam reforming with a novel catalytic nickel membrane for effective hydrogen production

This paper describes a study of methane steam reforming using a novel catalytic nickel membrane for hydrogen production. The catalytic nickel membrane was made by the uniaxial-pressing and thermal treatment of nickel powder. Since the nickel powder had catalytic activity, it was unnecessary to deposit an additional reforming catalyst on the nickel filter. The methane conversion, reformate composition, and hydrogen production rate were investigated at very high gas hourly space velocities of 22,350-100,700 h^-1 with a steam to carbon ratio of 3.0. When a mixture of methane and water was introduced into the catalytic nickel filter, the experimental trends exceeded the theoretical equilibrium model, because of the difference in the permeation rates of the gases, even with residence times of only ∼0.036 s.