M. Matsumura et C. Hirai, TRANSPORT MECHANISM OF ELECTROLYTE VAPOR TO REFORMING CATALYST, Industrial & engineering chemistry research, 37(5), 1998, pp. 1793-1798
The transport mechanism of electrolyte vapor to internal reforming cat
alyst is studied by combining two kinds of experiments: post-test anal
yses of catalyst and out-of-cell tests measuring the transfer rate of
electrolyte vapor in the gas phase. In the post-test analyses K and Li
pickups show a different behavior: the K pickup shows a saturated beh
avior around 1.1 wt % pickup after a short period of time, while the L
i pickup shows a steady increase during the life of the pickup. As a t
ransport mechanism electrolyte transfer through the gas phase is concl
uded to be the most likely path. The quick K pickup compared to Li is
explained by the difference of the transfer rate in the gas phase (4.4
x 10(-11) mol of K/cm(2)/s versus 1.7 x 10(-12) mol of Li/cm(2)/s). T
he concentration of the electrolyte vapor obtained is 1.4 x 10(-6) for
K and 1.3 x 10(-8) for Li as a mole fraction in a reducing atmosphere
, at 0.1MPa, and at 650 degrees C.