3D CFD Modeling and Optimization of a Cylindrical Porous Bed Reactor for Hydrogen Production using Steam Reforming of Me
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CFD Modeling and Optimization of a Cylindrical Porous Bed Reactor for Hydrogen Production using Steam Reforming of Methane S. B. Haghia, *, G. Salehib, **, M. T. Azadc, ***, and A. L. Nichkoohid, **** a
Energy System Group, Faculty of Marine Science, Islamic Azad University, North Tehran Branch, Tehran, 1651153311 Iran bDepartment of Mechanical Engineering, Islamic Azad University, Central Tehran Branch, Tehran,1419953492 Iran c Department of Physical Oceanography, Faculty of Marine Science, Islamic Azad University, North Tehran Branch, Tehran, 165115338 Iran d Department of Mechanical Engineering, Islamic Azad University, Nowshahr Branch, Nowshahr, Iran *e-mail: [email protected] **e-mail: [email protected] ***e-mail: [email protected] ****e-mail: [email protected] Received August 19, 2018; revised August 10, 2019; accepted July 10, 2020
Abstract—Steam Reforming of Methane, which converts natural gas into products with higher economic value in the presence of a suitable catalyst bed reformer, is the most economical method for hydrogen production in petroleum refineries. This study focuses on developing a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model of a steam methane reformer. To this purpose, a steady-state heterogeneous 3 Dimensional model that was composed of mass, species, momentum, and energy balances was developed. It compares two different geometrical porous bed reformers with different heating tube configurations for better heat transfer and reforming. Effects of heating tubes inlet temperature, the ratio of inlet CH4/H2O, and the configuration of the heating tube are studied and optimized. The results show that conversion of methane will be promoted by increasing inlet temperature of the heating tube as well as the number of heating tubes in the reformer when CH4/H2O ratio is about 0.2. In this platform, the conversion of methane is not affected by the porosity below 0.35. Also, the simulations results are shown to be in agreement with typical data reported in the literature. So, this study can be used to develop industrial natural gas reformers. Keywords: steam methane reformer, computational fluid dynamics, hydrogen production, syngas DOI: 10.1134/S0965544120110109
INTRODUCTION Recent years have seen the growing demands for developing methods to moderate the consumption of fossil resources and the climate change induced by the greenhouse gases emissions [1, 2]. One of the environmentally friendly fuel and energy sources is hydrogen [3, 4]. Hydrogen can be produced from a number of sources, such as water, hydrocarbon fuels, biomass, hydrogen sulfide, boron hydrides, and chemical elements [5]. About 95% of hydrogen at industrial scales is produced by methane steam reforming (MSR) in a catalytic bed in the US [6, 7]. In a MSR process, methane is converted into hydrogen and carbon monoxide termed “syngas”, and the water gas shift (WGS) reaction may be employed to modify the hydrogen to carbon dioxide to produce highly pure hydrogen [8, 9]. Large-scale reformers having 0.5–500 MW capacities
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