Numerical investigation into hydrogen content of reformate gas produced by methanol‐water fuel mixtures in reforming

Abstract

MATLAB/Simulink simulations are performed to investigate the hydrogen molar fraction of the reformate gas produced by four methanol-water fuel mixtures with molar ratios of 50%:50%, 62%:38%, 75%:25%, and 100%:0%, respectively. The simulations utilize the Thermolib module and investigate the hydrogen reforming performance of the four fuels for fuel flow rates in the range of 0.1 to 1 mol · min−1 and reaction temperatures ranging from 500 to 1000 K. The results show that the hydrogen molar fraction of the reformate gas decreases with an increasing methanol content. By contrast, for a given methanol concentration, the hydrogen molar fraction generally increases with an increasing flow rate and reaction temperature. Overall, the results show that the maximum hydrogen molar fraction (73.10%) is obtained using the 50%MeOH:50% water fuel mixture with a flow rate of 0.5 mol · min−1 and a reaction temperature of 800 K.