Heterogeneous reactor model for steam reforming of methane in a microchannel reactor with microstructured catalysts

Process intensification aspects for steam methane reforming: An overview

“…An important conclusion derived from their study was that hydrogen selectivity is dependent on the catalyst loading which is an important degree of freedom to maximize H 2 productivity. Analysis of such complex systems requires three-dimensional models 125 to accurately address the issues related to process performance.…”

Ni Catalyst Coating on Fecralloy® Microchanneled Foils and Testing for Methane Steam Reforming

“…Steam reforming is the preferred method for H 2 production in the petrochemical industry [4], but the commonly employed catalyst morphology (Ni supported on Al 2 O 3 pellets) is not suitable for the smaller flows and sizes needed on a domestic scale, mainly due to pressure losses and heat transfer constraints [5,6]. A possible solution is to deposit the catalyst onto high surface-to-volume ratio metallic structures.…”

Modeling of Surface-bed Reactor for Endothermic and Exothermic Reactions Coupling

“…Numerous studies have focused on the kinetics of methane steam reforming (Akers & Camp (1955); Allen et al, 1975;Aparicio, 1997;Luna and Becerra 1997;Craciun et al, 1998;Xu & Froment, 1989b;Hou & Hughes, (2001)), especially on Ni catalysts. Nevertheless, few modeling attempts of methane steam reforming in surface-bed or platetype reactors are currently available in the open literature (Avci et al, 2001;Zanfir & Gavriilidis (2003); Kolios et al, 2004;Cao et al, 2005). They are 2D and all include simplifying assumptions.…”

“…These concepts aim to minimizing fuel consumption and waste heat production in stand-alone hydrogen production, which gains increasing interest for innovative power generation systems, e.g., fuel cells (Kolios et al, 2004). Surface-bed reactors or plate-type reactors and microchannel reactors with microstructured catalysts have been suggested for steam reforming of hydrocarbons or for exothermic reactions (Tronconi & Groppi (2000); Zanfir & Gavriilidis (2003); Robbins et al, 2003;Kolios et al, 2004;Cao et al, 2005). In developing such reactors, the knowledge of the temperature profile within the reactor is important for designing and optimizing the catalysts structure and the reactor geometry to achieve the best performance.…”

“…The needs for hydrogen of the chemical industry are, generally, satisfied by the process of catalytic steam reforming of fossil fuels, which produces synthesis gas (H 2 and CO) that in turn is used for many important processes including methanol/dimethyl ether (DME) synthesis, ammonia production, olefins oxosynthesis to aldehydes (Marschner et al, 2005), carbonylation, hydrodesulphurization, hyrdrocracking, etc. (Rostrup-Nielsen, 1995 or as feedstock to the Fischer-Tropsch process for liquid hydrocarbons production (RostrupNielsen et al, 2001;Cao et al, 2005). Commercial processes for methane steam reforming use tubular reactors packed with supported nickel catalysts.…”