Dry biogas reforming for 50 % electric system efficiency. Modeling and experimental results: Presentation held at 10th CMCEE, International Symposium on Ceramic Materials and Components for Energy and Environmental Applications, May 20-23, 2012, Dresden, Germany

Thermodynamic calculations clearly indicate that dry reforming of biogas will yield reformate of great quality containing xH2+xCO>0.75 at T=800 °C. Dry reforming of biogas is similar to steam reforming. Carbon dioxide replaces water as reforming agent, making only a very small fraction of oxygen (lambdaref0.5 without any water management possible. The integrated reactor that shall achieve this goal in a real system is presented coupling the endothermic reforming process with the exothermic anode tail gas oxidizing. Results of component testing are shown. For the planned nominal operating point the necessary heat flux to the reforming process is sufficient and thermodynamic equilibrium concentrations are reached. Finally the operation of the reformer is tested within an SOFC biogas system and results are discussed. This indeed shows that for biogas a gross electric efficiency of etael,gro>0.5 is possible without water management using a highly integrated reactor for intense internal heat utilization.