Oxygenated Hydrocarbon (OxyHC) Reforming

One of the unique features of HTC's reformer is the ability to reform hydrogen "on site" and produce hydrogen in a scale most efficent for the customers operation. By elimiating the costly labour and transportation costs normally associated with hydrogen that is produced at a central facility, HTC can substantially reduce the major costs associated with the production and delivery of this product.

The OxyHC process is based on bio-fuel hydrogen derived from oxygenated hydrocarbon. The HTC reformer process can use a wide range of renewable oxygenated hydrocarbons such as:

• processed biomass: including ethanol, glycerol,
• cellulose and hemi-cellulose based feed-stocks,
• higher alcohols like 1-propanol or 1-butanol ,
• crude ethanol (the filtered but not distilled fermentation broth obtained by the fermentation of very high gravity mash derived from wheat grains and composed of ethanol, lactic acid, glycerol, maltose, etc.),
• crude glycerol (a by-product from the production of bio-diesel composed mainly of glycerol and free fatty acids)

All of these raw materials can be steam reformed on the HTC's proprietary catalysts and separated in the membrane reactor into H2 and CO2.

Some of the benefit of this process include:

1. A highly adaptable, scalable and flexible hydrogen production system
2. A positive environmental footprint
3. Additional revenue stream - sale of H2
4. Reduction in cost of production - reduce amount of natural gas used in process - H2 can be used as the energy source. .
5. Heat integration that makes separation process more energy efficient.
6. Reduced capital costs due to simplicity of the process design

The same membrane reactor used for the water-gas-shift reaction is used for the reforming of the oxygenated hydrocarbons.

		Figure 1: Schematic of HTC's Technology Platform: Mode # 1; Carbon Dioxide Reforming of Methane (CDRM) process followed by the Membrane Water-gas-shift (M-WGS) Reaction or Mode # 2; Liquid Oxygenated Hydrocarbons (OxyHC) Reforming in a membrane Reactor