Intensification of hydrogen production from methanol steam reforming by catalyst segmentation and metallic foam insert

This paper is a numerical study about the catalyst morphology CuO/ZnO/Al2O3 effects on the hydrogen production from methanol steam reforming, for proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PMEFC). The study is focused on the influences of the metal foam insert, catalyst layer segmentation, and metal foam as catalyst support on the reactor performance: hydrogen yield and methanol conversion. According to the carried simulations, it is found that these configurations improve the reformer performances compared to the continuous catalyst layer configuration. The insertion of metal foam increases the efficiency of up to 75.41% at 525 K. Also, at this reaction temperature, the segmentation of the catalyst layer in similar parts increases the reformer efficiency by 2.11%, 4.23%, 6.77%, and 8.6% for 2, 4, 8, and 16 identical parts, respectively. As well as, the metal foam as catalyst support is more efficient compared to the other configurations, the efficiency is equal to 64% at T = 495 k. (C) 2021 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This numerical study investigates the effects of catalyst morphology CuO/ZnO/Al2O3 on hydrogen production from methanol steam reforming for proton exchange membrane fuel cells. The study focuses on the influences of metal foam insert, catalyst layer segmentation, and metal foam as catalyst support on reactor performance. The results show that these configurations improve reformer performances compared to continuous catalyst layer configuration, with metal foam insertion increasing efficiency by up to 75.41% at 525 K.