The objective of this proposed work is to develop a novel high-performance catalytic microreactor that can be used to generate hydrogen through the autothermal decomposition of ammonia. The microreactor will operate with an extremely short residence time that is on the order of a millisecond. This chemical reactor configuration has two advantages that make this route to fuel cell hydrogen attractive. First, the autothermal operation of the reactor allows for the coupling of the exothermic combustion of ammonia with the endothermic decomposition of ammonia to hydrogen and nitrogen. Second, the short residence time translates into a small reactor volume with high throughputs.
Benefits: The proposed Phase I research will be immediately applicable in any chemical process that requires the use of hydrogen. The novel reactors proposed here can be readily scaled up to provide large quantities of hydrogen. However, due to the short contact time of these reactors, they will still be substantially smaller than "traditional" chemical reactors i.e. typically 1/10 to 1/100 the size since residence times are 1/10 to 1/100 of those in "traditional" chemical reactors. Processes that would find the novel reactors proposed here useful are hydrogenation, hydrotreating, hydroisomerization, and the hydrogen enriching of syngas
