CFD modeling of hydrogen production from glycerol steam reforming in Tesla microchannel reactor

Abstract

Hydrogen produced by glycerol steam reforming (GSR) is considered a renewable fuel as glycerol can be produced from bio-resources. In this study, a Tesla microchannel reactor for GSR was modified using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The research presents a novel approach to glycerol steam reforming using a Tesla and modified Tesla microchannel reactor and also a statistical model was developed using Response Surface Method (RSM) for predicting H2 yield in the Tesla microchannel reactor for the first time. In Tesla geometry, most of the fluid passes through the central path, and small amounts of fluid pass through the upper and lower loops. For this reason, Tesla geometry was modified by adding barriers in the central path using inclined walls. At the temperature of 773 K and steam/carbon ratio of 4 and feed inlet mass flow rate of 2 × 10−5 kg/s, the results show that glycerol conversion in the microchannel reactor by changing the geometry from Tesla to Modified Tesla was enhanced from 20.89 to 78.33% due to the passing of fluid through the two upper and lower loops and increasing the contact surface of the reactants with the wall-coated catalyst.