Design procedure of an experimental membrane enhanced methane steam reformer

In this work, a systematic procedure to design a membrane enhanced steam reformer (MSR) is proposed. Mass and energy balance equations are used to model the membrane enhanced steam reformer. The dimensionless parameters that are used as design variables (i.e. Damkohler number (Da), permeation number (θ), and pre-reformer over membrane steam reformer length ratio (ϖ)) can be derived from material and energy balance equations. These design parameters were optimized to maximize the conversion of methane. The optimal point of the design variables was found to be (Da = 0.1, θ = 70, ϖ = 0.2); this was used to calculate the size of the MSR, the catalyst weight, and the methane flowrate. A MSR corresponding the optimal design was built and tested in the EEL of ITRI laboratory. The best methane and hydrogen production rate are 59% and 105 ml/min, respectively.