Numerical Investigation of Methane Steam Reforming in the Packed Bed Installed with Metal Foam

Abstract

Hydrogen is one of the vital energy sources for addressing climate change, and methane steam reforming via a packed bed reactor is a primary method for global hydrogen supply. Recently, to enhance heat transfer, metal foam become the focus of research, and the heat transfer performance of reactors significantly affects hydrogen production. Therefore, it is one of the promising approaches to install the metal foam inside the packed bed reactor for higher hydrogen production. In this study, the methane steam reforming in the packed bed reactors installed with the different metal foams has been investigated by numerical method. It was found that the installation of metal foam leads to the increment of average velocity and the decrease of pressure drop, which is increased by 7.69 % and decreased by 4.82 % at maximum. Besides, the heat transfer performance was improved after the installation of metal foam, the temperature increased by 68.07 K at maximum and the overall heat transfer coefficient increased by 10.64 %. Due to the better performance of flow and heat transfer, the overall efficiency of hydrogen production is increased by 23.21 %.