I-Corps: Commercializing a Sulfur-Tolerant JP-8 Fuel Converter

能源的运输、分配和使用是军队面临的主要问题。为了简化后勤，美军选择JP-8作为唯一的战场燃料。虽然JP-8可用于基于燃烧的发电机中，但不存在低分子量烃和高浓度的含硫分子排除了商业燃气器具和高能量密度便携式燃料电池的使用。几种商用燃料转化器可以将JP-8改革为合成气或氢气;但工艺复杂性和硫不耐受性阻碍了它们的广泛采用。因此，目前的提案探索了一种新的燃料重整方法，该方法已在南卡罗来纳州大学开发。燃料转化器接受各种运输燃料，包括JP-8，并产生低分子量烃的混合物。与氢气相比，该过程的产物易于压缩和储存，并且更适用于固体氧化物燃料电池，商业燃气器具和燃烧发电机。沸石基催化剂是燃料转化技术的核心;它具有抗焦化、抗硫中毒和在低转化温度下具有活性的特点。催化过程的两个最强属性是其耐硫性和低硫产物浓度;换句话说，该过程是燃料重整器和脱硫器。该团队将研究催化剂生产的规模扩大，以满足客户需求。通过催化剂表征在规模扩大过程中获得的科学知识将促进燃料转化技术的商业化，并可转化为其他沸石规模扩大过程。

Energy transportation, distribution, and use are major problems for military forces. To simplify logistics, the US military has chosen JP-8 as the sole battlefield fuel. While JP-8 is useful in combustion-based generators, the absence of low molecular weight hydrocarbons and the high concentration of sulfur-containing molecules preclude the use of commercial gas appliances and energy-dense portable fuel cells. Several commercially available fuel converters can reform JP-8 into syngas or hydrogen; but process complexity and sulfur intolerance hinder their widespread adoption. Therefore, the current proposal explores a new fuel reformation method that has been developed at the University of South Carolina.The fuel converter accepts a variety of transportation fuels, including JP-8, and produces a mixture of low molecular weight hydrocarbons. In contrast to hydrogen, the products from the process are easy to compress and store and are more versatile for use in solid oxide fuel cells, commercial gas appliances, and combustion generators. The zeolite-based catalyst is the core of the fuel conversion technology; it is resistant to coking, sulfur-poisoning, and active at low conversion temperatures. Two of the strongest attributes of the catalytic process is its sulfur tolerance and low-sulfur product concentration; in other words, the process is a fuel reformer and desulfurizer. The team will research scale-up of the catalyst production in anticipation for customer demand. The scientific knowledge that is gained during scale up through catalyst characterization will facilitate commercialization of the fuel conversion technology and can be translated to other zeolite scale-up processes.