• 한국연소학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2012.04a
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• pp.29-31
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• 2012

The effects of combustion parameters on the characteristics of a steam-methane reformer. The reformer system was numerically simulated using a simplified two-dimensional axisymmetric model domain with an appropriate user-defined function. The fuel ratio, defined as the ratio of methane flow rate in the combustor to that in the reactor, was varied from 20 to 80%. The equivalence ratio was changed from 0.5 to 1.0. The results indicated that as the fuel ratio increased, the production rates of hydrogen and carbon monoxide increased, although their rates of increase diminished. In fact, at the highest heat supply rates, hydrogen production was actually slightly decreased. Simulations showed that equivalence ratio of 0.7 yielded the highest steam-methane mixture temperature despite a 43% higher air flow rate than the stoichiometric flow rate. This means that the production of hydrogen and carbon monoxide can be increased by adjusting the equivalence ratio, especially when the heat supply is insufficient.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.153-156
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• 2009

Low temperature methane steam reforming to produce $H_2$ for fuel cells has been calculated thermodynamically considering both heat loss of the reformer and unreacted $H_2$ in fuel cell stack. According to the thermodynamic equilibrium analysis, it is possible to operate methane steam reforming at low temperatures. A scheme for the low temperature methane steam reforming to produce $H_2$ for fuel cells by burning both unconverted $CH_4$ and $H_2$ to supply the heat for steam methane reforming has been proposed. The calculated value of the heat balance temperature is strongly dependent upon the amount of unreacted $H_2$ and heat loss of the reformer. If unreacted $H_2$ increases, less methane is required because unreacted $H_2$ can be burned to supply the heat. As a consequence, it is suitable to increase the reaction temperature for getting higher $CH_4$ conversion and more $H_2$ for fuel cell stack. If heat loss increases from the reformer, it is necessary to supply more heat for the endothermic methane steam reforming reaction from burning unconverted $CH_4$, resulting in decreasing the reforming temperature. Experimentally, it has been confirmed that low temperature methane steam reforming is possible with stable activity.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.1997-2002
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• 2007

The reformer is one of the most important chemical processes for the production of high purity hydrogen from fossil fuel. This study compares zero-dimensional model with CFD models for reaction analysis of methane-steam reformer. The zero-dimensional model is an empirical equation, however CFD model uses reactions of Arrhenius type. Because the reaction coefficients of the steam-methane catalytic reforming have not been reported before in the form of Arrhenius type, the present study aims to find the appropriate reaction coefficients. The used CFD code is Fluent 6.2 version. Several models are compared for the case of various operating temperature, mass of catalyst and steam to methane ratio.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.103-106
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• 2006

The Plate reformer consisting of combustion chamber and reforming chamber for 25 kW MCFC stack has been operated and computational fluid dynamics was applied to estimate reactions and thermal fluid behavior in the reformer. The methane air 2-stage reaction was assumed in the combustion chamber, and three step steam reforming reactions were included in the calculation. Flow uniformity, reaction rate and species distribution, and temperature distribution were analyzed. In particular, temperature distribution was compared with the measurements to show good agreement in the combustion chamber, however, inappropriate agreement in the reformer chamber

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.226-236
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• 2013

The heat distribution and internal flow from the efficiency of actual reformer and specification variation, using the computer simulation and experiment about the steam methane reforming reaction which uses the high temperature reformer. Reaction model from steam refoemer uses the steam response model developed by Xu & Froment.As result we supposed the chemical react Steam Reforming(SR), Water Gas Shift(WGS), and Direct Steam Reforming(DSR) from the inner high temperature reformer dominates the response has dissimilar response. According to result of steam methane reforming reaction exam using high temperature reformer, we figured out when Steam Carbon Ratio(SCR) increase, number of hydrogen yield increases but methane decreases. When comparing and examining between design with one inlet and two inlet, result came out one inlet design is more outstanding at thermal distribution and internal flow, hydrogen yield in one inlet design than two inlet design.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.60-68
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• 2009

The steam reformer for hydrogen production from methane is studied by a numerical method. Langmuir- Hinshelwood model is incorporated for catalytic surface reactions, and the pseudo-homogeneous model is used to take into account local equilibrium phenomena between a catalyst and bulk gas. Dominant chemical reactions are Steam Reforming (SR) reaction, Water-Gas Shift (WGS) reaction, and Direct Steam Reforming (DSR) reaction. The numerical results are validated with experimental results at the same operating conditions. Using the validated code, parametric study has been numerically performed in view of the steam reformer performance. As increasing a wall temperature, the fuel conversion increases due to the high heat transfer rate. When Steam to Carbon Ratio (SCR) increases, the concentration of carbon monoxide decreases since WGS reaction becomes more active. When increasing Gas Hourly Space Velocity (GHSV), the fuel conversion decreases due to the heat transfer limitation and the low residence time. The reactor shape effects are also investigated. The length and radius of cylindrical reactors are changed at the same catalyst volume. The longer steam reformer is, the better steam reformer performs. However, system energy efficiency decreases due to the large pressure drop.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.1-12
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• 2023

In this study, an efficient one-dimensional model was developed for predicting microchannel steam/methane reformers with thin washcoat catalyst layers with a focus on low-pressure reforming conditions suitable for distributed hydrogen production systems for fuel cell applications. The governing equations for steam/methane mixture gas flowing through the microchannel reformer were derived considering the species conservation with reforming reactions and energy conservation with external convective heat supply. The reaction rates for the developed model were simply determined through the catalyst effectiveness factor correlations instead of performing complicated calculations for the steam/methane reforming process occurring inside the washcoat catalyst layers. The accuracy of the developed was verified by comparing the results obtained herein with those obtained by the detailed computational fluid dynamics calculation for the same microchannel reformer.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers P
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• v.58 no.4
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• pp.639-643
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• 2009

A reformer, which produces hydrogen from natural gas, plays a major role for producing quality hydrogen to fuel-cell system. In this paper, fuel processor is designed to deliver hydrogen(75%) from the reformer to 200W fuel-cell system, and the electrical output power of the fuel-cells is examined by being injected different hydrogen concentrations to the system. We verified that the output power characteristics of the fuel-cells with 75% reformed hydrogen was lower about 7% than the case of pure hydrogen supplied. The type of reformer in this experiment takes SMR(Steam methane reforming) process, and the temperature variation characteristics of reforming process by reactions are examined in operation.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.61-67
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• 2011

The study is to analyze the chemical and heat-flow reactions in the hydrogen generation unit(autothermal reformer), using computational numerical tools. Autothermal reformer(ATR) is involved in complex chemical reaction, mass and heat transfer due to exothermic and endothermic reactions. Therefore it is necessary to reveal the effects of various operation parameters and geometries on the ATR performance by using numerical analysis. Numerical analysis needs to dominant chemical reactions that includes Full Combustion(FC) reaction, Steam Reforming(SR) reaction, Water-Gas Shift(WGS) reaction and Direct Steam Reforming(DSR) reaction. The objective of the study is to improve theoretically the reformer design capability for the goal of high hydrogen production in the autothermal reformer using methane. Hydrogen production reached maximum in a certain value of Oxygen to Carbon Ratio(OCR) or Steam to Carbon Ratio(SCR). When the longitudinal distance to dimeter ratio(L/D) is increased, hydrogen production increases.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.113-120
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• 2013

A steam reformer is a chemical reactor to produce high purity hydrogen from fossil fuel. In the steam reformer, since endothermic steam reforming is heated by exothermic combustion of fossil fuel, the heat transfer between two reaction zones dominates conversion of fossil fuel to hydrogen. Steam Reforming is complex chemical reaction, mass and heat transfer due to the exothermic methane/air combustion reaction and the endothermic steam reforming reaction. Typically, a steam reformer employs burner to supply appropriate heat for endothermic steam reforming reaction which reduces system efficiency. In this study, the heat of steam reforming reaction is provided by anode-off gas combustion of stationary fuel cell. This paper presents a optimization of heat transfer effect and average temperature of cross-section using two-dimensional models of a coaxial cylindrical reactor, and analysis three-dimensional models of a coaxial cylindrical steam reformer with chemical reaction. Numerical analysis needs to dominant chemical reaction that are assumed as a Steam Reforming (SR) reaction, a Water-Gas Shift (WGS) reaction, and a Direct Steam Reforming(DSR) reaction. The major parameters of analysis are temperature, fuel conversion and heat flux in the coaxial reactor.