CFD modeling of methane autothermal reforming in a catalytic microreactor

Producing hydrogen from natural gas for a mini scale fuel cell is a new challenge for researchers. Therefore, modeling of hydrogen production microreactors should be helpful for designing and developing new microreactors. Experimental sensing of velocity, concentration, temperature and reaction rates in numerous points of the microreactor is impracticable. A microreactor in special geometry was considered for hydrogen production and a CFD model was developed in order to incorporate the mechanism of autothermal reforming. This mechanism includes three main reactions and Langmuir-Hinshelwood type kinetic rates. A three dimensional reformer model was developed to simulate the reactive laminar flow model of this microreactor. Effects of styles of feed entrance, air to fuel ratio and adding water to methane were studied. This model shows that there are hot spots near the entrance of the microreactor where the total oxidation of methane occurs and air distribution along the microreactor is a good solution for hot spot problems. The model shows that air distribution is good for fuel cell application because of high hydrogen production and low CO content in the outlet.