Development of large-flux laminated methanol reforming microreactor heated by methanol catalytic combustion

Abstract

To achieve high flow hydrogen production, a laminated self-thermal methanol reforming microreactor was designed. Through simulation and experiments, the hydrogen production performance of the microreactor and the compatibility between the methanol catalytic combustion module and the methanol steam reforming module were investigated. The results show that the microreactor exhibits impressive hydrogen production performance, with a methanol conversion rate of 95.27%. When the inlet flow rate of the mixture of methanol and deionized water was increased to a high flow rate, the microreactor exhibits significant cold spots over a wide range in the reaction chamber plates, which could be effectively solved by enhancing the methanol catalytic combustion intensity. The methanol catalytic combustion module inside the microreactor can meet the heat demand of the methanol reforming module. The microreactor operated for 20 h with a methanol-deionized water mixture inlet flow rate of 12 mL/min and a methanol inlet flow rate of 7.5 mL/min; the methanol conversion rate finally stabilized at 90.1%, which was decreased by about 2.2% compared with the initial methanol conversion rate.