Simulations of Hydrogen Production by Methanol Steam Reforming

Methanol is regarded as an important feedstock for hydrogen production due to its high energy density and superior transportability. A tubular packed-bed reactor performing the methanol steam reforming (MSR) process was modeled by adopting computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software to analyze its performance. Kinetic parameters of the reactions were adjusted according to the literatures and our previous experimental results. The methanol conversion, the hydrogen production rate, and the CO concentration in the produced mixture were evaluated by considering different levels of the length and temperature of the catalyst bed, the steam-to-carbon ratio and the space velocity of the feedstocks. Moreover, the correlation between the dimensionless parameter, Damköhler number, and the methanol conversion was also investigated.