Progress of Cryogenics and Isotopes Separation , ISSN: 1582-2575
2011, Volume 14, Issue 1

Mathematical Modelling of Steam Methane Reforming in a Membrane Reactor - Preliminary Results

Elena Carcadea 1* , Mihai Varlam 1 , Ioan Stefanescu 1 , Vasile Tanislav 1 , Horia Ene 2 , Bogdan Nicolescu 3

1 National Institute for Research and Development for Cryogenics and Isotopic Technologies - ICIT Rm. Valcea, Uzinei Street no. 4, P.O. Box Raureni 7, 240050, Ramnicu Valcea, Romania
2 Romanian Academy of Sciences, Mathematical Institute, Bucharest, Romania
3 Pitesti University, Faculty of Mathematics, Romania

*Corresponding author: Elena Carcadea, E-mail: lili@icsi.ro

Published: May 2011


Abstract

Steam methane reforming is one of the important reactions for production of hydrogen. It accounts for roughly about 48 % of hydrogen produced globally. It is considered that the development of a membrane-based separation process can open up the possibility of increasing the conversion of the reforming process. In this paper a mathematical modeling of a two-dimensional, pseudo-homogeneous and stationary membrane reactor for methane steam reforming was developed in order to obtain some preliminary results regarding the methane conversion. Sievert's law was used to describe the mechanism of hydrogen permeation across the membrane and a CFD code (COMSOL Multiphysics) was applied to analyze the steam methane reforming.

The study is intended to give us an insight regarding the interaction between the flow and chemical reaction that is taking place inside the membrane reactor.


Keywords

Methane reforming, membrane reactor, multiphysics simulation.


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