Solar steam reforming for enriched methane production: Reactor configurations modeling and comparison

The effect of the main operating conditions as Gas Hourly Space Velocity (GHSV), inlet reactor temperature and reactant mixture composition is assessed for both the configurations, demonstrating the process feasibility. Furthermore, in order to increase the process performance, an electrical power generation unit is also included, exploiting the sensible heat of the residual MS stream after the EM production unit: in this case, with a feed of 2000 Nm3/h of natural gas, about 6130 Nm3/h of enriched methane and 475 kWel are produced with the EHE configuration, while 3720 Nm3/h and 585 kWel are obtained with IHE configuration.