• 한국연소학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국연소학회 2012년도 제44회 KOSCO SYMPOSIUM 초록집
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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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• 제30권1호
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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.

• 대한기계학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한기계학회 2007년도 춘계학술대회B
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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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• 한국신재생에너지학회 2006년도 춘계학술대회
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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

• 에너지공학
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• 제22권2호
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• pp.226-236
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• 2013

고온개질기를 이용한 수증기 메탄 개질반응에 대해 실험 및 전산해석 기법을 이용하여 실제 개질기의 효율 및 개질기의 형상의 변화에 따른 열 분포 및 내부 유동에 대해서 연구하였다. 수증기 개질에 대한 반응모델은 Xu & Froment에 의해 개발된 수증기 반응 모델을 사용하였고, 그 결과로 고온개질기내에서 일어나는 화학반응은 Steam Reforming(SR), Water Gas Shift(WGS), Direct Steam Reforming(DSR) 반응이 다른 반응을 지배한다고 가정하였다. 고온개질기를 이용한 수증기 메탄 개질 반응 실험 결과로는 Steam Carbon Ratio(SCR)이 증가함에 따라 수소 수득율 또한 증가하고 일산화탄소와 메탄은 감소하는것을 알 수 있었다. 또한 입구가 한 개인 디자인과 두 개인 디자인을 비교, 분석하였을 때 입구가 두 개인 개질기보다 입구가 한 개인 개질기에서 열 분포 및 내부유동, 수소 수득율이 우수하다는 결과를 얻게 되었다.

• 대한기계학회논문집B
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• 제33권1호
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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.

• 신재생에너지
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• 제19권2호
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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.

• 전기학회논문지P
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• 제58권4호
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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.

• 한국유체기계학회 논문집
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• 제14권6호
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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.

• 한국수소및신에너지학회논문집
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• 제24권2호
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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.