Effect of inter-catalytic layer spacing at wall-coated steam methane reformer surfaces on hydrogen production

This work deals with a numerical study on a wall-coated steam methane reformer improvement. The effect of the catalytic layers configuration on the methane conversion is analyzed. Two configurations of the catalyst region are compared. A catalytic region with parallel continuous layers, impregnated on both upper and lower walls, against a catalyst region endowed with an inter-catalytic layer spacing. The involved transport phenomena are governed by momentum, energy and species equations. The Navier-Stokes equations are employed in the mixture phase. The obtained results show that the utilization of discrete catalytic layers allows avoiding the cold zones on the catalytic region and enhancing the methane conversion of the wall-coated steam methane reformer.