Highlighting of the impact of periodic operations on the performance of methanol steam reforming process for pure hydrogen generation

• Published in: Revue des énergies renouvelables Vol. 19; no. 4; pp. 663 - 679
• Main Author: L. Chibane
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Renewable Energy Development Center (CDER) 01.12.2016
• Subjects: hydrogen generation; membrane reactor; methanol steam reforming; pure hydrogen
• ISSN: 1112-2242; 2716-8247

In this paper, we focus to highlighting the positive role of periodic operation which can be played for performance improvement of a hydrogen separator reactor integrating a palladium membrane. For this subject, a mathematical approach describing the pure hydrogen production and its pumping during methanol steam reforming process is developed to simulate the effect of the reactor inlet feed and of sweeping gas on reactor performance. The main findings show that the reactor responses exhibit a periodic phenomenon. So, in order to achieve a yield improvement higher than that obtained under the steady state conditions, it is necessary to intensify the process by using a periodic operation. Therefore, when the reactor is simultaneously forced by running the feed composition in the reaction side and by the sweeping gas in the permeate side using a symmetric square function, the magnitude of improvement of methanol conversion and pure hydrogen recovery are higher than that achieved at steady state operation. This is due to the dual effect synergistic, which is could be brought by the potential periodic mode of the inputs coupling.