In this thesis, a literature review of hybrid solar-fossil fuel power generation is first given with an emphasis on system integration and evaluation. Hybrid systems are defined as those which use solar energy and fuel simultaneously, thus excluding the viable alternative of solar thermal plants which use fossil fuels as backup. The review is divided into three main sections: performance metric...

Hydrogen production has gained increasing attention as a potential energy carrier, which can utilize many forms of renewable energy, such as biomass, wind and direct solar power. It has increased its significance as fossil fuels are being used up at a high rate and energy security is of greater importance to the United States and many other countries. Furthermore, hydrogen production offers the...

High temperature steam gasification/reforming of biomass-methane mixtures was carried out in an indirectly heated entrained flow reactor to analyze the feasibility of controlling the output composition of the major synthesis gas products: H(2), CO, CO(2), CH(4). A 2(3) factorial experimental design was carried out and compared to thermodynamic equilibrium predictions. Experiments demonstrated t...

We examine a H2 PEMFC power generation system composed of three subsystems: fuel reforming, fuel cell stack, and post combustion. The system was simulated and optimized with a fuel cell model integrated within the process flow sheet. We present a case study of the H2 production optimized w.r.t. the CH4 and H2O inlet flow rate and the temperature of steam methane reform reactor. Our objectives a...

Comparisons of DFT and experiments on methane-steam reforming assess the predictive quality 12 state-of-the-art GGA, DFT-D vdW functionals.

The performance of Ni-Cu/Al2O3 catalysts for steam reforming (SR) of gasoline to produce a hydrogen-rich gas mixture applied in a spark ignition (SI) engine was investigated at relatively low temperature. The structural and morphological features and catalysis activity were observed by X-ray diffractometry (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and temperature programmed reduction (TPR). Th...

The steam reforming of ethanol (SRE) on a bimetallic RhPt/CeO2 catalyst was evaluated by the integration of Response Surface Methodology (RSM) and Aspen Plus (version 9.0, Aspen Tech, Burlington, MA, USA, 2016). First, the effect of the Rh–Pt weight ratio (1:0, 3:1, 1:1, 1:3, and 0:1) on the performance of SRE on RhPt/CeO2 was assessed between 400 to 700 ◦C with a stoichiometric steam/ethanol m...

Due to energy and environmental issues, hydrogen has become a more attractive clean fuel. Furthermore, there is high interest in producing hydrogen from biomass with a view to sustainability. The thermochemical process for hydrogen production, i.e. gasification, is the focus of this work. This paper discusses the mathematical modeling of hydrogen production process via biomass steam gasificatio...