Performance evaluation of methane‐fueled reactor for hydrogen production: Experimental permeability measurements and reactive flow modeling

Abstract

In this research, an evaluation of the performance improvement of a new reactor configuration for steam methane reforming (SMR) is carried out through a numerical-experimental approach. Two configurations of M-PCR have been studied numerically to compare the benefits. The first one consists of a conventional micro planar cell reactor (noted clear M-PCR), which is impregnated in its central axis in the direction of gas mixture flow by Ni/Al 2 O 3 catalyst. The second M-PCR configuration is equipped with nickel-based metal foam (MF) (noted M-PCR MF), which supports similar catalyst layer as for clear M-PCR configuration. The same operating conditions and catalyst weight density are set. 2D numerical solution of the transport equations was performed with a homemade code based on FORTRAN language to explore the heat and mass transfer during the SMR process. To better evaluate the nickel-based MF effects, permeability coefficients, that is, Darcy and inertial coefficients, were first measured using an experimental bench for hydrodynamic characterization of porous media. Comparison has showed that M-PCR MF configuration provides a significant enhancement in terms of hydrogen yield (73,25%). Furthermore, the catalyst layer length could be reduced by four times compared to conventional M-PCR due to MF implementation, leading to important economic improvement while keeping an interesting SMR efficiency.