Heat and mass transfer characterization of porous copper fiber sintered felt as catalyst support for methanol steam reforming

•A porous copper fiber sintered felt (PCFSF) as catalyst support is fabricated.•The PCFSF with different porosities exhibits good uniform heat transfer.•Larger pressure drop is produced with higher nitrogen gas feed rates.•Resident time is gradually decreased with increasing porosity in the range of 70–90%.•The PCFSF with 80% porosity presents better reaction performance.

A novel porous copper fiber sintered felt (PCFSF) as catalyst support is fabricated to construct the methanol steam reforming microreactor for hydrogen production. In this study, the heat and mass transfer properties of PCFSF with different porosities is experimentally investigated. The results show that the PCFSF with different porosities exhibits good uniform heat transfer. The thermal conductivity is decreased with increasing porosity in the porosity range of 70–90%. With lower gas feed rate, no great change of the pressure drop is observed. However, larger pressure drop is produced with the higher gas feed rates. Moreover, we found that the resident time in the PCFSF is gradually decreased with increasing porosity. Much longer resident time is obtained when the lower gas feed rate is selected. The PCFSF with 80% porosity as catalyst support presents better reaction performance because of the enhancement of heat and mass transfer resulting from the unique porous structure.