A passively-fed methanol steam reformer with catalytic combustor heater

This paper presents a continuation of our work on our simple novel feeding method for a methanol steam reformer. Using a single heat source, a fixed ratio of water and methanol vapor can be fed into the reformer passively without fuel pumps. The feasibility of this method has already been verified using an electric heater and a catalytic combustor fueled with pure methanol is used at present. Machined on a copper plate, a catalytic combustor in a u-turn-channel was positioned under a two-turn serpentine channel reformer. Water/methanol feed ratios of 0.8–1.47 were managed under different reaction temperatures. Highly uniform temperature distributions throughout the reformer were demonstrated. With an increasing reaction temperature, the product composition varied from 71.5% H2 to 0.26% CO to 73% H2 and 0.45% CO. The methanol conversion exceeded 98% when the reaction temperature was higher than 292 °C and the water/methanol feed ratio was over 1.0.

► We developed a novel thermally-controlled MSR system heated with a catalytic methanol combustor. ► A u-turn-channel catalytic combustor achieved highly uniform temperature distributions. ► This novel reformer performed well even with S/C = 1.0 due to uniform temperature distributions.