Using conical reactor to improve efficiency of ethanol steam reforming

Fixed-bed reactor is one of the most common reactor types applied in ethanol steam reforming (ESR). Despite the low price, easy application and simple structure, low efficiency is considered as one of the most important challenges for these reactors. Using micro scale structure reactors, new and optimized catalysts, and also micro channels with various arrangements, are some of various procedures that have been used to solve this problem. In this work, for the first time, using ESR, the effect of changing reactor diameter in the longitudinal direction of reactor on the performance of fixed-bed microreactor has been studied. In this way, three reactors A, B and C with conical, cylindrical and inversed conical geometry with equal volumes have been used. The effect of temperature, contact time and S/E ratio on ethanol conversion and productivity of H2 and CO2 have been studied. According to the results, conical reactor has the best performance between mentioned reactors.