Comparison study of thermochemical waste-heat recuperation by steam reforming of liquid biofuels

The concept of thermochemical exhaust heat recuperation by steam reforming of biofuels is considered. Thermochemical recuperation can be considered as an on-board hydrogen production technology. A schematic diagram of a fuel-consuming equipment with thermochemical heat recuperation is described. The thermodynamic analysis of the thermochemical recuperation systems was performed to determine the efficiency of using various fuels, in particular, methanol, ethanol, n-butanol, and glycerol. The thermodynamic analysis was performed by Gibbs free energy minimization method and implemented using the Aspen Hysys program. The thermodynamic analysis was performed for a wide temperature range from 400 to 900 K, for steam-to-fuel of 1, and pressures of 1 bar. The maximum fuel conversion reaches for the following temperatures: methanol - 600 K, ethanol - 730 K, n-butanol - 860 K, glycerol - 890 K. The dependence of the reforming enthalpy on temperature is determined. It was shown that the reaction enthalpy determines the heat transformation coefficient, which shows the ratio of the low heat value of synthetic fuel and the low heat value of the initial fuel. For all studied fuels, the maximum value of the transformation coefficient is observed for steam reforming of ethanol and the maximum heat transformation coefficient is 1.187. The temperature range is determined at which the maximum efficiency of the use of thermochemical recuperation occurs due to the reforming of biofuels. For methanol, the effective temperature is about 600 K, for ethanol is about 700 K, for n-butanol is 850 K, for glycerol is more than 900 K. The results obtained make it possible to efficiently select the type of fuel for thermochemical recuperation due to steam reforming.