Numerical investigation of methane steam reforming in packed bed reactor with internal helical heat fins

Abstract

Hydrogen is one of the essential clean energy sources and methane steam reforming in a packed bed reactor is the primary method of hydrogen production. The internal helical heat fins are used extensively for enhancing the performance in different industrial devices. To improve the methane steam reforming, the packed bed reactors installed with the different internal helical heat fins have been investigated and the effects of different pitch have been compared. When the pitch become larger, the outlet mass flow and the velocity disturbance are increased by 9.5% and 382.3% respectively, however, too larger pitch brings the higher flow resistance. The internal helical heat fins improve the fluid temperature and reduce the thermal resistance. The temperature is increased by 19.2 K and the thermal resistance is decreased by 43.1% at maximum compared with the normal packed bed. While the pitch equals 120 mm, the efficiency is the highest, which is increased by 42.3%. Although the internal helical heat fins increase the cost of reactor due to the structure complexity, the total cost decreases. As the pitch equals 120 mm, the total cost is the lowest, which is about 1.6 USD/kg and decreased by 24.6%.