Author(s)

Lei Guo^*, Cong Li

School of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering, Shanghai University of Engineering Science, Shanghai, China.

Hydrogen production through dimethyl ether steam reforming is an attractive option for mobile applications of hydrogen fuel cells. Hydrogen is a major trend in the future of energy development. It is not only pollution-free, but also has a high energy density. Therefore, research on hydrogen fuel cells is particularly important. In this paper, a numerical research on dimethyl ether steam reforming reaction in a reactor has been presented using a computational fluid dynamics. A three-dimensional reactor model developed by the commercial software COMSOL (version 5.2a) was used to simulate the reaction characteristics by modifying reforming conditions. The simulation results indicate the temperature distribution, mass distribution, and reveal the dependency of dimethyl ether reforming reaction rate on temperature, pressure, the length of the reactor. The yield of H₂ and conversion of dimethyl ether with different mass ratios and inlet temperature (200°C, 300°C, 400°C, 500°C) were examined. The governing equations in the model include conservations of mass, momentum, energy and chemical species.

Dimethyl Ether, Steam Reforming, Computational Fluid Dynamics Modeling, Simulation

Guo, L. and Li, C. (2018) Parameter Analysis and Numerical Simulation of Hydrogen Production by Steam Reforming of Dimethyl Ether. Journal of Power and Energy Engineering, 6, 1-11. doi: 10.4236/jpee.2018.611001.