Theoretical and numerical study to investigate characteristics of light-off and steady state of methane autothermal reactor for efficient light-off, high hydrogen yield and selectivity

시동 특성, 수소 생산 및 선택성 향상을 위한 자열개질기의 이론 및 수치해석적 연구

The present paper is devoted to investigate dynamic effect and steady-state performance of methane autothermal reformer theoretically and numerically. In order to simplify the complicated phenomena in the system, axisymmetric heterogeneous reactor model is developed. As autothermal reaction takes places on catalyst surface between bulk gas and catalyst, volume averaging method is incorporated using porous medium approach. To understand the start-up process which occurs in the reactor is highly important. Therefore, in this paper we get various goverining equations to find out transient and steady solutions and time scale for start-up introducing dimensionless variables. Start-up is a significant issue in reforming reaction for automobile system and fueling of SOFC-based auxiliary power units. This paper deals with characteristics of heat and mass transfer and predicted light-off time in the reformer as oxygen to carbon ratio ($O_2$/C) and amount of feeding gas.