Feasibility assessment and process design for cogeneration of heat and power by steam reforming of diluted bioethanol

A bioethanol reforming system, capable of converting a diluted water-ethanol mixture intohydrogen, is sized and set up to produce 5 kW of electric power via a polymer electrolytemembrane fuel cells (PEMFC). A part of the produced hydrogen supplies heat for thereforming reaction without impairing the power generation, then no additional fuel isrequired. According to the different configurations of the control variables, the heatreleased from the system is distributed between two different temperature ranges andcoupled to a standard house-scale combined heat and power (CHP) cogeneration appa-ratus. Hot water can be produced continuously at a high enough temperature to cover theneed of a F-class home in the moderately cold Northern Italy winter climate. With a micro-accumulation solution and a careful choice of the set-points, also the sanitary hot waterdemand (DHW) of a 4-members family might be fulfilled with 2e3 daily cycles of the samesystem.