Numerical study of heat and mass transfer in the plate methanol steam micro-reformer channels

Effects of geometric and thermo-fluid parameters on performance and heat and mass transfer phenomena in micro-reformer channels were investigated by mathematical modeling. The geometric parameters considered were the channel length, channel height, catalyst thickness and catalyst porosity, while the thermo-fluid parameters included wall temperature, inlet fuel temperature, fuel ratio and Reynolds number. The results of the modeling suggest that the methanol conversion could be improved by 49%-points by increasing the wall temperature from 200 degrees C to 260 degrees C. The results also show that the CO concentration would be reduced from 1.72% to 0.95% with the H2O/CH3OH molar ratio values ranging from 1.0 to 1.6. The values of parameters that enhance the performance of micro-reformer were identified, such as longer channel length, smaller channel height, thicker catalyst layer, larger catalyst porosity, lower Reynolds number and higher wall temperature. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.