Identifying heat and mass transfer characteristics of metal hydride reactor during adsorption: Improved formulation about parameter analysis

Transport process affects the performance of a metal hydride reactor significantly. Therefore in a former paper presented by the same authors, two parameters, which are known as heat transfer controlled reaction rate and mass transfer controlled reaction rate, were defined to account for this effect and assist the design of the reactors. However, a few simplifications were adopted in that article, which may result in some errors. in order to achieve better accuracy and clarity, more factors such as the external convection heat transfer and propagation of reaction front were considered here in the formulation of the parameters. Then numerical simulations for the adsorption in a tubular reactor were carried out and the situation under which parameter analysis can be applied was discussed. More characteristics in the process were revealed by the newly formulated parameters, which could be seen from the comparison of the results by parameter analysis and numerical simulation. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of international Association for Hydrogen Energy