fuel cell reformation technology - for resistojets

I read recently that researchers had developed a small device that reforms a
water methanol mixture to supply a hydrogen fuel cell. Would it make any
sense to use one of these to supply low molecular weight reaction mass to a
resistojet?

In article ,
toby wrote:
I read recently that researchers had developed a small device that reforms a
water methanol mixture to supply a hydrogen fuel cell. Would it make any
sense to use one of these to supply low molecular weight reaction mass to a
resistojet?

Trouble is, you're throwing away a good fraction of the total mass,
because the hydrogen is only a small portion of the input mass. The waste
counts against propellant consumption too. For a rocket, you're almost
always better off feeding everything you've got into the engine.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

Henry Spencer wrote:

In article ,
toby wrote:
I read recently that researchers had developed a small device that reforms a
water methanol mixture to supply a hydrogen fuel cell. Would it make any
sense to use one of these to supply low molecular weight reaction mass to a
resistojet?

Trouble is, you're throwing away a good fraction of the total mass,
because the hydrogen is only a small portion of the input mass. The waste
counts against propellant consumption too. For a rocket, you're almost
always better off feeding everything you've got into the engine.

That's what I imagined being done.

I dont know what the reformer output is perhaps something like:

ch3oh + H2o -- co2 + 3h2 :combined molecular mass = 50

divided by 4 molecules gives average value of 12.5 water is 18?

rt(18)/rt(12.5)=1.2 so maybe a 20% improvement over water?

12.5 might be a bit pessimistic as the water fraction may be lower but
the minimum can only be with no water which comes out at about 11 not a
huge difference.

I wonder if it would work with ethanol?

c2h5oh + h2o -- 2co + 4h2 [64/6 about 10.7] about 30% better than
water.

Toby