Abstract
This study presents a method that can be employed to obtain the reaction rate and be widely applied to the simulation of steam methane reforming in a channel with a catalyst on the wall. Prior to the numerical simulation, an experiment was performed in an annular channel, in which the catalyst was deposited on the outer surface of the inner tube. In addition to varying the temperature and composition of the reactants, the velocity was also varied in order to investigate the range where the reaction-limiting condition occurs. Next, the results from the bulk concentration of the products were interpreted to determine the reaction rate of the surface catalyst. The reaction rate was properly introduced into the numerical simulation in two dimensions, although this method for obtaining the reaction rate is generally applied to a field that is supposed to be one-dimensional as a packed catalyst. On the other hand, a discrepancy between the experimental and simulation results was observed at a low velocity. The reason for this was investigated by considering the concentration and profile of the reactants. As a result, we concluded that it was necessary to pay close attention in a case where the amount of the reaction varied with the velocity, because the actual phenomena were controlled by other mechanisms that were not introduced into the numerical simulation.
