Barmaki Maryam, Jalilnejad Elham, Ghasemzadeh Kamran, Iulianelli Adolfo
Chemical Engineering Department, Urmia University of Technology, Urmia 57155-419, Iran.
Institute for Materials and Processes, School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9YL, UK.
Membranes (Basel). 2025 Aug 18;15(8):248. doi: 10.3390/membranes15080248.
The main aim of this study deals with the potential evaluation of a fluidized bed membrane reactor (FBMR) for hydrogen production as a clean fuel carrier via methanol steam reforming reaction, comparing its performance with other reactors including packed bed membrane reactors (PBMR), fluidized bed reactors (FBR), and packed bed reactors (PBR). For this purpose, a two-dimensional, axisymmetric numerical model was developed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to simulate the reactor performances. Model accuracy was validated by comparing the simulation results for PBMR and PB with experimental data, showing an accurate agreement within them. The model was then employed to examine the effects of key operating parameters, including reaction temperature, pressure, steam-to-methanol molar ratio, and gas volumetric space velocity, on reactor performance in terms of methanol conversion, hydrogen yield, hydrogen recovery, and selectivity. At 573 K, 1 bar, a feed molar ratio of 3/1, and a space velocity of 9000 h, the PBMR reached the best results in terms of methanol conversion, hydrogen yield, hydrogen recovery, and hydrogen selectivity, such as 67.6%, 69.5%, 14.9%, and 97.1%, respectively. On the other hand, the FBMR demonstrated superior performance with respect to the latter reaching a methanol conversion of 98.3%, hydrogen yield of 95.8%, hydrogen recovery of 74.5%, and hydrogen selectivity of 97.4%. These findings indicate that the FBMR offers significantly better performance than the other reactor types studied in this work, making it a highly efficient method for hydrogen production through methanol steam reforming, and a promising pathway for clean energy generation.
本研究的主要目的是通过甲醇蒸汽重整反应，对作为清洁燃料载体的流化床膜反应器（FBMR）制氢潜力进行评估，并将其性能与包括填充床膜反应器（PBMR）、流化床反应器（FBR）和填充床反应器（PBR）在内的其他反应器进行比较。为此，利用计算流体力学（CFD）开发了一个二维轴对称数值模型，以模拟反应器性能。通过将PBMR和PB的模拟结果与实验数据进行比较，验证了模型的准确性，结果表明两者吻合良好。然后，该模型用于研究关键操作参数，包括反应温度、压力、水碳摩尔比和气体体积空速，对反应器在甲醇转化率、氢气产率、氢气回收率和选择性方面性能的影响。在573K、1巴、进料摩尔比为3/1和空速为9000 h的条件下，PBMR在甲醇转化率、氢气产率、氢气回收率和氢气选择性方面达到了最佳结果，分别为67.6%、69.5%、14.9%和97.1%。另一方面，FBMR表现出优于后者的性能，甲醇转化率达到98.3%，氢气产率达到95.8%，氢气回收率达到74.5%，氢气选择性达到97.4%。这些发现表明，FBMR的性能明显优于本研究中所研究的其他反应器类型，使其成为通过甲醇蒸汽重整制氢的高效方法，以及清洁能源生产的一条有前景的途径。
