Kinetics for hydrogen production by methanol steam reforming in fluidized bed reactor

Hydrogen is one of the best energy carriers. Fluidized bed reactor provides a promising approach for hydrogen production. To describe the hydrogen generating rate with methanol steam reforming in fluidized bed reactor quantitatively, dual-rate kinetic models of the reactions with exponent form were developed, including that of steam reforming reaction (SR) and decomposition reaction (DE). The reaction rate per unit mass of catalyst was related to partial pressures of components. The exponentials in kinetic equations were obtained by linear least-squares method based on the experimental data. The variance homogeneity test (F test) shows that the dynamic models are feasible with high accuracy, which can be used to predict the generating rate of hydrogen under different reaction temperatures and feed flow rates in fluidized bed reactor. The SR and DE activation energy obtained indicates that E-SR < E-DE, which can explain the previous observation that the CO2 selectivity decreased with the temperature increase.