(95a) Hydrogen Production From Residual Heavy Oil

Various technologies have been developed for hydrogen production in view of the increasing use of fuel cells in the automotive industry. In essence, a fuel cell is a electrochemical reactor that generates energy from the catalytic conversion of hydrogen. The majority of the present technologies for hydrogen production are based in the water reforming reaction or in reactions of partial oxidation of methanol, ethanol, or propane, most of them in general accompanied by CO formation, which have to be removed from the produced gas due to its poisonous effect on the catalyst, even though in concentrations of few ppm. The present work is oriented to the hydrogen production in a nonthermal plasma reactor. The predominant chemical reactions conducted in a cold plasma reactor are essentially dehydrogenations when hydrocarbons are the reactives. Taking advantage of this characteristic, the present study is focused on the production of hydrogen from residual heavy oil, using argon as carrier gas. The main goal is to consider the process as an alternative method for production of a gas rich in hydrogen and free of carbon monoxide. During the last decade, the nonthermal plasma technologies have been mainly focused in the destruction of harmful compounds in the air. In the present case heavy oil obtained as a residue in the refineries is processed to get hydrogen in a high concentration in a gaseous mixture of light olefins. The reactor employed is a plate-to-plate nonthermal plasma reactor driven by AC high voltage. The parameters sensibility was evaluated using the methodology of the Statistical Experimental Design techniques.