Pd-based membrane steam reformers: A simulation study of reactor performance

摘要: Steam reforming of natural gas is the main process for production hydrogen and synthesis needed in chemical industry as reactants manufacturing important products, mainly ammonia methanol. Moreover, development fuel cell technology many application fields (stationary automotive) will increase next years need industrial quantities pure hydrogen. This increasing demand stimulating new technologies producing large amounts at low cost. The most promising based on integration ultra-selective membranes steam reactor, removing continuously from reaction environment preventing equilibrium conditions to be achieved. In this work integrated membrane methane reformer performance evaluated by a bi-dimensional non-isothermal non-isobaric model comparison with traditional varying mixture residence time wall temperature made. Results obtained attest remarkable improvement reactor integrating selective membrane: if long imposed (50kg cat s/mol), conversion more than doubled respect technology. On other hand, improves both reactor. However, have stringent technological threshold (T<823K) which limits thermal level accepted inside