Hydrogen production via catalytic autothermal reforming of desulfurized Jet-A fuel

On-board hydrogen production via catalytic autothermal reforming is beneficial to vehicles using fuel cells as auxiliary power unit 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_Xcatalyst 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 °C, which gave H₂O/C = 2.5 and O₂/C = 0.5, and the obtained fuel conversion percentage, hydrogen yield, and energy efficiency were 0.89, 1.44, and 0.65, respectively. In addition, a discussion of the molar fraction variation of CO and CO₂at different H₂O/C, as well as the analysis of fuel conversion profile, leads to the finding of effective approaches for suppression of coke formation.