FUEL 248

Methanol is attractive for miniature reforming because of relatively low temperatures, absence of sulfur compounds, and low CO production, eliminating the need for WGS. At the other extreme are higher-MW fuels that require increased temperatures, contain sulfur, and yield significant CO, necessitating WGS. However, specific energy density is more than twice that of methanol for JP-8, a military fuel used in a variety of vehicles, and ubiquitous in the military environment.

Microchemical systems afford the ability to deal with most of the issues of processing hydrocarbons in miniaturized systems since they possess unique thermal and mass transport properties and because, of course, they are inherently compact in size. We will present results of microchemical processing of methanol, and look forward at our approach for dealing with JP-8 and similar fuels in compact systems.