Development of a catalytic shift reactor for gasification processes

The obstacles in producing hydrogen using renewable resources such as wind, solar, etc. has made gasification processes more reliable options. The use of gasification processes requires the use of shift reaction to convert high concentrations of CO in synthesis gas into hydrogen. Because synthesis gas from gasification processes may have high sulfur compound content (H₂S ≤ 6000 ppm), the choice of catalyst for shift reaction is difficult. A two-stage shift reactor with CoO/MoO₃ catalyst was developed for gasification processes. The characteristics of the shift reaction was determined using simulation gas (CO: 15-45 vol %, H₂: 30-50 vol %, CO₂: 5-20 vol %, CH₄: 0-3 vol %), which was equal to the synthesis gas composition of gasification processes. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 231th ACS National Meeting (Atlanta, GA 3/26-30/2006).