Deduction of Proper Reaction Rate of Steam Methane Reforming over Catalyst Surface Validated with a Combination of One- and Two-Dimensional Simulations

Hydrogen can be used not only as a fuel, but also for the chemical processing. One of the applications is as a synthesis gas in the gas-to-liquid (GTL) process which produces liquid fuel from a gaseous one and has tremendous potential for the future energy industry. Steam methane reforming (SMR) is one of the major methods of hydrogen production. To optimize SMR, pressure dependence is important since the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process, which is the oil production process in GTL, favors high pressure. In this study, using the rate expressions of SMR, which are obtained by experiment using a nickel-based catalyst supported on a metal plate in a rectangular channel, two-dimensional (2-D) simulation was performed at four different pressures ranging from 0.1 to 0.4 MPa in addition to one-dimensional (1-D) simulation. The reaction rates deduced from the experimental results on the basis of pseudo-bulk reaction naturally fit the 1-D simulation. The more precise 2-D simulation, however, inevitably needs some modification to reasonably predict the phenomena on the basis of the data from the pseudo-bulk reaction. As a result, the discrepancy between the results could be fixed by adjusting the reaction rate for the related pressure, and the adjusted factors show consistency between 1-D and 2-D calculations. Finally, the proper rate equations were estimated.