Developing a mathematical model for reforming of glycerol towards a comparative evaluation of the liquid vs. gas phase medium

Abstract

Glycerol might be converted into hydrogen through a catalytic reforming process. In order to design an effective route, the choice of reaction conditions and in particular its medium considered yet a crucial issue still needing further investigations. In this research, a mathematical model of reforming processes in vapor (i.e., steam reforming (SR) and liquid phase (i.e.; aqueous phase reforming (APR)) were developed. This was performed in terms of understudying effects of parameters including the reactor diameter, catalyst morphology (i.e., particle size) and mass flow rate on the glycerol conversion. Then, a superior reaction medium in terms of these variables was determined. For data validation, experimental values were adopted from glycerol reforming over Pt/CeZrO2 catalyst with BET surface area of 81–102 m2 g−1, mean particle size of 5.29–7.18 nm and crystallinity of 40–53%. It was revealed that, for the same WHSV and reactor length, conversion of the APR was considerably more than that of the SR process. Moreover, it was demonstrated that, if the SR had to have the same conversion as that of the APR, the utilized reactor length should have approximately increased by about 80 folds for the liquid phase. Overall, this study provided a simple pathway through the developed model to comparatively evaluate the medium (i.e.; gaseous as in the SR vs. liquid as in the APR) for the glycerol conversion aiming at reducing experimental costs a head of going to the laboratory.