Simulation of Surface Chemical Reactions in a Monolith Channel for Hydrogen Production

N. Pacheco[1], D. Pavone[1], K. Surla[1], J. Houzelot[2], and E. Schaer[2]
[1]IFP-Lyon, Solaize, France
[2]ENSIC, Solaize, France
Published in 2008

This paper intends to show a model of a monolithic reactor for the autothermal reforming process (ATR), a process that uses hydrocarbons to produce H2. The ATR chemical reactions take place on the surface of monolith channels coated with a catalyst.

The isothermal ATR reactor is modeled using 42 catalytic surface chemical reactions that involve 13 solid species and 7 gas species. To solve the model, two numerical techniques with COMSOL are compared: the Surface Model using weak form equations (SM) and a standard thin Volume Model (VM).

This paper shows that the surface modeling (SM) is the better way to calculate the monolith catalytic reactions.

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