Methanol micro-channel reformer is an important device for generating hydrogen to supply micro fuel-cell needs. In the fuel reforming process, the catalyst is adopted to reduce the activation energy and speed up the reforming reaction. Hydrogen and other chemical substance are produced in the reformer catalytic reaction. The micro-channel structure provides more opportunity for molecules of methanol and steam mixture to collide with catalyst for high reforming reaction to take place.
The reforming process of methanol in a micro-channel reformer with Pd/ZnO catalyst is studied numerically in this thesis. The effects of various channel length, channel height, inlet velocity, inlet temperature, and catalyst usage (ratio of wall area covered by catalyst) on the performance of reformer (methanol conversion percentage) are investigated numerically.
The results show that the methanol conversion increases with increased channel length until a channel length of about 3000£gm, the conversion approaches 100%. The conversion percentage decreases with increased inlet velocity, however, the production rate of hydrogen depends on flow rate and conversion percentage. Increasing the channel height results in decreased methonal conversion due to less collision opportunity with the catalyst. The methanol conversion percentage increases with the increase of the inlet temperature. However, the production rate of the hydrogen starts to descend when the inlet temperature is higher than about 523 K owing to more methonal preburned in raising the inlet temperature. Methanol conversion increases with the catalyst usage. However, it is worth noting that the increase is only about 15% for catalyst usage from 50% to 100%.
The results in this study provide design data for the fuel cell system designer.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0911107-182249 |
| Date | 11 September 2007 |
| Creators | Jhang, Jhen-ming |
| Contributors | Yang, Chien-Yuh, Yang, Ru, Hwang, Jen-Jyh |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | Cholon |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0911107-182249 |
| Rights | not_available, Copyright information available at source archive |
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