Study on the impact of methanol steam reforming reactor channel structure on hydrogen production performance

Abstract

The design and operation of embedded reactors involve chemical reaction efficiency issues, with the main consideration being heat and mass transfer characteristics. The contact area of the porous catalytic coating with methanol is affected by the reactor structure, to improve the hydrogen yield and reveal the mechanism of the channel structure on the hydrogen production performance, the hydrogen production performance of circle-triangle, circle-square, square-circle, square-square, and triangle-circle channels was investigated. The reasons for the differences in methanol conversion, hydrogen, and carbon monoxide selectivity were analyzed from the perspective of heat and mass transfer using a three-rate reaction mechanism. The results showed that the circle-triangle channel performed outstandingly in the hydrogen production from methanol steam reforming with 98.61 % methanol conversion, 88.74 % hydrogen selectivity, and 29.06 % CO selectivity. The shapes and sizes of the different channel structures affect the fluid flow pattern and velocity distribution, which in turn affect the mass transfer efficiency and lead to differences in hydrogen production performance. The circle-triangle channel exhibits superior heat transfer and material transport performance, which can improve the hydrogen production efficiency of methanol steam reforming and help provide an important reference for the embedded reactor design.