Numerical study of the behavior of methane-hydrogen/air pre-mixed flame in a micro reactor equipped with catalytic segmented bluff body

In this work, combustion characteristics of premixed methane-hydrogen/air in a micro reactor equipped with a catalytic bluff body is investigated numerically. In this regard, the detailed chemistry schemes for gas phase (homogeneous) and the catalyst surface (heterogeneous) are used. The applied catalytic bluff body is coated with a thin layer of platinum (Pt) on its surface. Also, the lean reactive mixture is entered to the reactor with equivalence ratio 0.9. The results of this study showed that the use of catalytic bluff body in the center of a micro reactor can significantly increase the flame stability, especially at high velocities. Moreover, it is found that a catalytic bluff body with several cavities on its surface and also high thermal conductivity improves the flame stability more than a catalytic bluff body without cavities and low thermal conductivity. Finally, it is maintained that the most advantage of using the catalytic bluff body is its easy manufacturing process as compared to the catalytic wall. This matter seems to be more prevalent when we want to create several cavities with various sizes on the bluff-body.