Numerical investigation of methane steam reforming in packed bed reactor with internal helical heat fins

Hydrogen is one of the essential clean energy sources and methane steam reforming in a packed bed reactor is the primary method of hydrogen production. The internal helical heat fins are used extensively for enhancing the performance in different industrial devices. To improve the methane steam reforming, the packed bed reactors installed with the different internal helical heat fins have been investigated and the effects of different pitch have been compared. When the pitch become larger, the outlet mass flow and the velocity disturbance are increased by 9.5% and 382.3% respectively, however, too larger pitch brings the higher flow resistance. The internal helical heat fins improve the fluid temperature and reduce the thermal resistance. The temperature is increased by 19.2 K and the thermal resistance is decreased by 43.1% at maximum compared with the normal packed bed. While the pitch equals 120 mm, the efficiency is the highest, which is increased by 42.3%. Although the internal helical heat fins increase the cost of reactor due to the structure complexity, the total cost decreases. As the pitch equals 120 mm, the total cost is the lowest, which is about 1.6 USD/kg and decreased by 24.6%.

Automated summary

In this study, the effects of different pitch of internal helical heat fins on methane steam reforming in a packed bed reactor were investigated. It was found that larger pitch increased the outlet mass flow and velocity disturbance by 9.5% and 382.3% respectively, but also brought higher flow resistance. The internal helical heat fins improved the fluid temperature and reduced the thermal resistance, with a temperature increase of 19.2 K and a thermal resistance decrease of 43.1% compared to the normal packed bed. The highest efficiency was achieved when the pitch was 120 mm, with an increase of 42.3%. Although the internal helical heat fins increased the reactor cost due to structural complexity, the total cost decreased. The lowest total cost was achieved when the pitch was 120 mm, with a decrease of 24.6% to about 1.6 USD/kg.