A novel thermally autonomous methanol steam reforming microreactor using SiC honeycomb ceramic as catalyst support for hydrogen production

Methanol steam reforming (MSR) is an attractive option for in-situ hydrogen production and to supply for transportation and industrial applications. This paper presents a novel thermally autonomous MSR microreactor that uses silicon carbide (SiC) honeycomb ceramic as a catalyst support to enhance energy conversion efficiency and hydrogen production. The structural design and working principle of the MSR microreactor are described along with the development of a 3D numerical model to study the heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics. The simulation results indicate that the proposed microreactor has a significantly low drop in pressure and more uniform temperature distribution in the SiC ceramic support. Further, the microreactor was developed and an experimental setup was conducted to test its hydrogen production performance. The experimental results show that the developed microreactor can be operated as thermally autonomous to reach its target working temperature within 9 min. The maximum energy efficiency of the microreactor is 67.85% and a hydrogen production of 316.37 ml/min can be achieved at an inlet methanol flow rate of 360 μl/min. The obtained results demonstrate that SiC honeycomb ceramic with high thermal conductivity can serve as an effective catalyst support for the development of MSR microreactors for high volume and efficient hydrogen production.