Use of Unmixed Combustion for Catalytic Cracking

Highly compact lightweight autothermal reformers have been developed by several research groups which will allow the conversion of gasoline into hydrogen for use in portable fuel cell power systems. Excessive coke formation prevents these reformers from being used with logistics fuel. This problem would be solved by developing a portable catalytic cracker to convert logistics fuel into a fuel that resembled gasoline. Previous efforts to develop such a catalytic cracker have failed because 1) coke formation in the cracking process causes problems; 2) packed bed reactors conduct heat poorly, making it difficult to get enough heat into the reactor to supply the endothermic cracking reaction. Dr Lyon of EERGC has invented a new combustion technology called Unmixed Combustion. In application to Steam Reforming this technology has been shown to solve both the coking and heat input problems. EERGC Corporation proposes to use a combination of experimental and engineering design studies to develop an Unmixed Combustor/Catalytic Cracker; demonstrate that it converts logistics fuel into a cracked fuel with chemical composition and combustion properties similar to gasoline; identify the autothermal reformer most suitable for interfacing with the Unmixed Catalytic Cracker; and find the most thermally efficient way of doing so.