Numerical investigation on the wall-coated steam methane reformer improvement: Effects of catalyst layer patterns and metal foam insertion

•Study of the combined effects of catalyst layer patterns and metal foam insertion on steam methane reformer performances.•Inserting metal foams into steam methane reformers improves the wall-coated steam methane reformer efficiency.•An enhancement of CH4 conversion by 44.6% is obtained.•Alternating catalyst layers arrangement on the reformer walls can improves the H2 production.

In this paper, a numerical simulation of improving performances of catalyst wall-coated steam methane reformer for hydrogen production is presented. A comparative analysis of three different configurations of a parallel-plate reformer is carried out. A single catalyst layer of 10 mm length is adopted for the first configuration, while, for the second one, it is divided into five discrete uniform layers and impregnated alternately on the reformer's walls. For the third one, metal foam bounded by the discrete catalyst layers is inserted into the catalyst region. The effects of the catalyst-layer patterns and the metal foam insertion on the thermal behavior and the reaction kinetics are analyzed. The involved transport phenomena are governed by momentum, energy and species equations. The Darcy-Brinkman-Forchheimer model is used in the metal foam region while the Navier–Stokes equations are employed in the clear region. The obtained results show that this combination between the catalyst arrangement and the metal foam insertion, improves the steam methane reformer efficiency. The CH4 conversion rate improving is estimated to 44.6%.

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