Experimental study of hydrogen production and soot particulate matter emissions from methane rich-combustion in inert porous media

A detailed experimental study of stationary Thermal Partial Oxidation (TPOX) within inert porous media has been conducted. The reaction zone of the tested TPOX reformer is designed so as to enable stationary conversion of fuel/air mixtures for a wide range of operational conditions. Operating characteristics of the process have been examined for two different porous matrices, with different thermal and transport properties, namely SiSiC open foam structure and a packed bed of pure Al2O3 packing material in the form of cylindrical rings. The influence of reactants preheating was also examined since the reformer is meant for integration within high temperature fuel cell systems. The operating regime was scanned for reactants' inlet temperature of 400 °C and 550 °C, varying the thermal load in a range from 350 kW/m2 up to 2600 kW/m2 and the equivalence ratio from 1.9 up to 2.9. Temperature profiles within the reaction region of the reformer were recorded for all tested conditions while gas samples were on-line analyzed for the major species H2, CO, CO2, and minor species CH4, C2H2. At reactants' inlet temperatures of 400 °C and 600 °C, for a fixed thermal load of 1540 kW/m2 and for selected equivalence ratios around the sooting limit of the process (φ = 2.2–2.6), soot particle size distributions were measured in the exhaust gas with a Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer (SMPS). The results show that the better thermal properties and the higher porosity in the case of the SiSiC matrix enables longer residence times for slow reforming reactions to evolve towards equilibrium and yields syngas with significantly less soot in terms of particle numbers and mass concentration.

► Methane converted to syngas via a stationary combustion zone in inert porous media.
► Operating characteristics investigated for two different porous matrices.
► Operating regimes mapped for both materials.
► Temperature profiles measured within the reaction zone and exhaust gas composition.
► Results for soot particle size distributions within the reformer exhaust gas.