CFD based model to evaluate silica membrane reactor performance in hydrogen production

The aim of this work is to analyze the potential application of microporous silica membrane reactor carrying out methanol steam reforming reaction for hydrogen production. As a further study, a comparison with dense Pd-Ag membrane reactor, working at the same operating conditions of silica membrane reactor, is realized. To this purpose and as a first approach, a two-dimensional isothermal model was developed using CFD method and its validation was realized by comparing the CFD results with experimental data. In both cases, a good agreement between CFD study results and experimental data was found. So, the CFD model was used for studying the effects of some important operating parameters (temperature, pressure and feed molar ratio) on the performance of silica membrane reactor in terms of methanol conversion and hydrogen recovery in comparison with the dense Pd-Ag membrane reactors. The CFD analyses showed that the silica membrane reactor presents comparable performance to the dense Pd-Ag membrane reactor in terms of methanol conversion. So, regarding to lower cost of silica membranes, this type of membrane reactor can be introduced as a promising alternative of Pd-based membrane reactor for hydrogen production.

Keywords:

Silica membrane reactor , hydrogen production , CFD modeling , methanol reforming