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Biogas is a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide produced from the anaerobic microbial digestion of biomass. It is an inexpensive, local source of energy but is usually wasted because the high CO2 content reduces the quality of the fuel. Catalytic dry and auto-thermal reforming is investigated as a means to completely utilize the CH4 and CO2 to produce syngas, H2 and CO, a valuable product that can be used to produce liquid fuels, provide H2 for fuel cells, or improve the combustion of biogas. The effect of the chlorocarbon methyl chloride (CH3Cl), a common biogas impurity, on the catalyst is also considered. Chlorocarbons are potential catalyst poisons that are unique to bio-derived fuels due to the natural presence of chlorinated compounds in organic material that are released during thermal treatment. Despite their presence in biogas, the effect of chlorocarbons on the dry reforming reaction has not been extensively studied. This work investigates the effect of CH3Cl in particular on the activity and selectivity of methane dry and auto-thermal reforming using a Rh/γAl2O3 catalyst.

Spatio-temporal analysis of fluctuations may reveal a lot of information about a complex system. In particular, it may allow one to quantify the strength of stabilizing mechanisms, and to estimate the distance from a subcritical bifurcation. However, to achieve a reliable analysis, the characteristics of the process noise, and, more important, the statistics of the measurement noise have to be known with reasonable accuracy. The capabilities of our new techniques will be demonstrated using large-scale social and ecological databases. We will show how drunk are bird population and their observers are, why you cannot see the (rain) forest for the trees, and why parents make wrong choices when they pick a name for their baby.