Design And Research Of Miniaturized Methanol Fuel System For Hydrogen Production

With the increasingly severe problems of energy and the environment,new methods for the development of clean energy and energy utilization have become the research hotspots.Hydrogen fuel cell is an important research field of energy generation devices because of their characteristics which are environment friendly and high efficiency.There are some key issues which restrict the promotion and application of hydrogen fuel cells,among them,the hydrogen storage and transportation is one key issue.In this research,methanol and water were selected as the raw materials for a miniaturized hydrogen production reactor.This reactor integrated the methanol steam reforming reaction and CO methanation reaction.This paper combined the simulation and the experiments to calculate the kinetic parameters of methanol steam reforming with certain kinetic model.The gained kinetic parameters and the kinetic model were inputted into the COMSOL Multiphysics 5.3model,the simulation results are verified with the experimental results.The in-suit hydrogen production reactor was designed and simulated based on COMSOL Multiphysics 5.3 with the verified kinetic parameters and kinetic model.The structure of the reactor was designed and reaction conditions were investigated to produce hydrogen which could meet the requirements of proton exchange membrane fuel cells.The results are shown as follows:?1?The methanol steam reforming was simulated based on ASPEN PLUS and the appropriate conditions for hydrogen production are:atmospheric pressure,reaction temperature range is 200²80?,steam methanol ratio range is 1.0².8.The CO content in the exhaust is 17 ppm when the reaction run under this condition.?2?The kinetic parameters of methanol steam reforming with certain kinetic model are:k_SR=1.5×10⁷exp(-_RT^86.7),k_rWGS=8.2×10⁶exp(-_RT^66.8)?3?The model of the fixed bed reactor used in the previous test was set up,and the kinetic parameters was inputted into COMSOL Multiphysics 5.3,coupled with mass transfer and heated transfer,the methanol steam reforming reaction was simulated.The results were in consonance with the experimental results.This results verified the reliability of the kinetic parameters and model setting.?4?A miniaturized hydrogen production reactor was established and simulated based on COMSOL Multiphysics 5.3.The simulating results indicated that:in the exhaust the CO content could be decreased to 5.3 ppm when the inlet temperature was240?,the S/C was 2.0,and the residence time was 0.15 h.This CO amount can meet the requirements of proton exchange membrane fuel cell operation.