Hydrogen Production via Catalytic Autothermal Reforming of Desulfurized Jet-A Fuel Available to Purchase

On-board hydrogen production via catalytic autothermal reforming is beneficial to vehicles using fuel cells because it eliminates the challenges of hydrogen storage. As the primary fuel for both civilian and military air flight application, Jet-A fuel (after desulfurization) was reformed for making hydrogen-rich fuels in this study using an in-house-made Rh/NiO/K-La-Ce-Al-O_X ATR catalyst under various operating conditions. Based on the preliminary thermodynamic analysis of reaction equilibrium, important parameters such as ratios of H₂O/C and O₂/C were selected, in the range of 1.1–2.5 and 0.5–1.0, respectively. The optimal operating conditions were experimentally obtained at the reactor’s temperature of 696.2 °C, which gave H₂O/C = 2.5 and O₂/C = 0.5, and the obtained fuel conversion percentage, hydrogen yield (can be large than 1 from definition), and energy efficiency were 88.66%, 143.84%, and 64.74%, respectively. In addition, a discussion of the concentration variation of CO and CO₂ at different H₂O/C, as well as the analysis of fuel conversion profile, leads to the finding of effective approaches for suppression of coke formation.