Effect of microchannel structure on the reaction performance of methanol steam reforming

• Published in: Applied energy Vol. 154; pp. 416 - 427
• Main Authors: Pan, Minqiang, Wu, Qiuyu, Jiang, Lianbo, Zeng, Dehuai
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 15.09.2015
• Subjects: Cross-section; Methanol steam reforming; Microchannel; Non-uniform distribution; Non-uniform distribution; Methanol steam reforming; Microchannel; Cross-section
• ISSN: 0306-2619; 1872-9118
• DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.05.021

•Effect of microchannel cross-section and distribution on MSR are investigated.•Microchannel distribution shows much more influence on reaction performance.•SLDR and ELR with rectangular cross-section present better reaction performance.•DLSR and EUU with tooth cross-section have better reaction performance.•Equal-distribution of microchannels present the best reaction performance. Methanol steam reforming inside microchannel reactors is regarded as one of effective methods for supplying hydrogen for fuel cells. Microchannel structure plays an important role on the reaction performance of methanol steam reforming. Parallel and uniform-distributed microchannels with rectangular cross-section are generally adopted. In this work, two kinds of microchannel cross-sections and four kinds of microchannel distributions are selected to investigate the effect of microchannel structure on the reaction performance of methanol steam reforming. The result indicates that microchannel distribution shows much more influences on the reaction performance of methanol steam reforming than the microchannel cross-section. Sparse-distribution in the Left direction and Dense-distribution in the Right direction (SLDR) as well as Equal-distribution in the Left–Right direction (ELR) with rectangular cross-section present relatively good reaction performances, whereas Dense-distribution in the Left direction and Sparse-distribution in the Right direction (DLSR) as well as Equal-distribution in the Upside–Underside direction (EUU) with tooth cross-section have relatively good performances. ELR presents the best reaction performances of methanol steam reforming among all the investigated microchannel structures, whether rectangular or tooth cross-section.