Modeling and simulation of steam methane reforming and methane combustion over continuous and segmented catalyst beds in autothermal reactor

In this paper, a numerical analysis of the production of hydrogen via autothermal (ATR) steam methane reforming (SMR) is presented. The combustion reaction occurs over a Pt/Al₂O₃ catalyst, and the reforming reaction is operated using a Ni/Al₂O₃ catalyst inside the same cylindrical channel. A novel configuration with18 catalytic-bed macro-patterns alternately mounted, referred to as SDB, is designed and compared with the catalytic dual-bed reactor (conventional configuration), referred to as CDB, at the same operating temperature and pressure conditions of 900 °C and 14 bars, respectively. The results showed that hydrogen yield was improved by 4.5% compared to the conventional configuration, while a decrease of 67 °C of the highest temperature was noticed. Meanwhile, the methane conversion was 63.73% and 65.44% for the CDB and SDB configurations, respectively. Furthermore, the length of the reactor can be decreased by 27%, keeping the same hydrogen yield at the outlet of the conventional reactor, indicating a potential reduction in hydrogen cost.