• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.40 no.11
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• pp.745-753
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• 2016

Micro methanol-steam reformer for fuel cell can effectively produce hydrogen as reforming response to steam takes place in low temperature (less than $250^{\circ}C$). This study conducted numerical research on this reformer. First, study set wall temperature of the reformer at 100, 140, 180 and $220^{\circ}C$ while methanol conversion efficiency was set in 0, 0.072, 3.83 and 46.51% respectively. Then, porosity of catalyst was set in 0.1, 0.35, 0.6 and 0.85 and although there was no significant difference in methanol conversion efficiency, values of pressure drop were 4645.97, 59.50, 5.12 and 0.45 kPa respectively. This study verified that methanol-steam reformer rarely responds under the temperature of $180^{\circ}C$ and porosity does not have much effect on methanol conversion efficiency if the fluid flowing through reformer lowers activation energy by sufficiently contacting reformer.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.261-269
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• 2015

In this study, numerical analysis of curved channel steam-methanol reformer was conducted using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) commercial code STAR-CCM. A pre-numerical analysis of reference model with a cylindrical channel reactor was performed to validate the combustion model of the CFD commercial code. The result of advance validation was in agreement with reference model over 95%. After completing the validation, a curved channel reactor was designed to determine the effects of shape and length of flow path on methanol conversion efficiency and generation of hydrogen. Numerical analysis of the curved-channel reformer was conducted under various flow rate ($10/15/20{\mu}l/min$). As a result, the characteristics of flow and mass transfer were confirmed in the cylindrical channel and curved channel reactor, and useful information about methanol conversion efficiency and hydrogen generation was obtained for various flow rate.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.19-24
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• 2018

Fuel cells are used to generate electricity with a reformer. In particular, methanol has various advantages among the fuels for reformer. Methanol steam reformer devices can efficiently supply hydrogen to PEM fuel cell. This study investigated the optimal operation conditions of a methanol steam reforming process. For this purpose, aspen HYSYS was used for the optimization of reforming process. The optimal operating condition could be designed by setting independent variables such as temperature, pressure and steam to carbon ratio (SCR). The optimal temperature and steam to carbon ratio were $250-270^{\circ}C$ and 1.3-1.5, respectively. It is advantageous to operate at a pressure of 15-20 barg, considering the performance of the hydrogen purifier. In addition, a heat exchange network was designed to supply heat constantly to reformer through the latent heat of steam.

• Clean Technology
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.329-335
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• 2020

Methanol synthesized from renewable hydrogen and captured CO2 has recently attracted great interest as a sustainable energy carrier for large-scale renewable energy storage. In this study, molten carbonate fuel cell's performance was investigated with the direct conversion of methanol into syngas inside the anode chamber of the cell. The internal reforming of methanol may significantly improve system efficiency since the heat generated from the electrochemical reaction can be used directly for the endothermic reforming reaction. The porous Ni-10 wt%Cr anode was sufficient for the methanol steam reforming reaction under the fuel cell operating condition. The direct supply of methanol into the anode chamber resulted in somewhat lower cell performance, especially at high current density. Recycling of the product gas into the anode gas inlet significantly improved the cell performance. The analysis based on material balance revealed that, with increasing current density and gas recycling ratio, the methanol steam reforming reaction rate likewise increased. A methanol conversion more significant than 90% was achieved with gas recycling. The results showed the feasibility of electricity and syngas co-production using the molten carbonate fuel cell. Further research is needed to optimize the fuel cell operating conditions for simultaneous production of electricity and syngas, considering both material and energy balances in the fuel cell.

• Clean Technology
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.130-136
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• 2009

Commercial catalyst (Cu-Zn/$Al_2O_3$, Johnson Matthey Co., 83-3 Catalyst) was applied to the hydrogen production by steam reforming of methanol in the micro-channel reactor (MCR). The steam reforming of methanol was tested over Cu-Zn catalyst at temperatures in the range of 200 and 300$^{\circ}C$, the catalyst size of 0.05${\sim}$2.2 mm, the space velocity of 3,000${\sim}$10,000 $hr^{-1}$ in a fixed bed continuous flow reactor. The conversion of methanol and the yield $H_2$ preferred high temperatures and low space velocities, and had optimal results with the particle size of 0.35 mm. Based on the results from experiments with fixed bed reactor, two types of MCR, boat bed and stacked bed MCRs, were studied. The stacked bed type MCR showed better methanol conversion compared with the boat type one.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society for Energy Engineering kosee Conference
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• 2004.05a
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• pp.91-96
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• 2004

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.277-285
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• 2001

We developed a compact, 10 kWe, purifier-integrated reformer which supplies hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles. Our proprietary technologies regarding hydrogen purification by palladium alloy membrane and catalytic combustion by noble metal coated wire-mesh catalyst were combined with the conventional methanol steam reforming technology, resulting in higher conversion, excellent quality of product hydrogen, and better thermal efficiency than any other systems. In this system, steam reforming, hydrogen purification, and catalytic combustion take place all in a single reactor so that the whole system is compact and easy to operate. The module produces $8.2Nm^3/hr$ of 99.999% or higher purity hydrogen with CO impurity less than 10 ppm, which is equivalent to 10 kWe when PEMFC has 45 % efficiency. Thermal efficiency of the module is 81 % and the power density of the module is 1.6 L/kWe. As the results of experiments, cold-start time has been measured about 20 minutes. Response time of hydrogen production to the change of the feed rate has been within 1 minutes.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.411-418
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• 2020

A reformer is a device for producing hydrogen used in fuel cells. Among them, methanol steam reformer uses methanol as fuel, which is present as a liquid at room temperature. It has the advantage of low operating temperature, high energy density, and high hydrogen production. The purpose of this study is to improve the internal flow of the pressure vessel when a bundle of methanol steam reformer in the pressure vessel goes out to a single outlet. An analysis of equilibrium reaction to methanol steam reforming reaction was conducted using Aspen HYSYS^® (Aspen Technology Inc., Bedford, USA), and based on the results, computational analysis was conducted using ANSYS Fluent^® (ANSYS, Inc., Canonsburg, USA). For comparison of the results, the height of the pressure vessel, outlet diameter, and fillet was set as variables, and the optimum geometry was selected by comparing the effects of gravity and the amount of negative pressure.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.173-179
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• 2016

This is a numerical study on the curved channel type of hydrogen reformer using the commercial code of fluid dynamics. We numerically compared the numerical model in a previous study model and the modelling of a tube type curved channel. In the result of numerical analysis on 4 types of curved channel reformers, the methanol conversion efficiency of type 1~4 were 45.0%, 45.3%, 45.6%, 45.6% respectively, and there was hardly any difference by ${\pm}0.6%$. In light of flow characteristics, the rectangle type tube and the type 2 with $45^{\circ}$ turn showed most uniform flow characteristics and concentration distribution of methanol, and the circular type tube and the type 3 with $90^{\circ}$ turn had most un-uniform flow characteristics and concentration distribution of methanol. We concluded that the design for curved channel reformer has to have rectangle type tube with curve of almost $45^{\circ}$ as in the type of curved pipe with $45^{\circ}$ turn.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.78-85
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• 2023

Fixed-bed reactor Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation of methanol steam reforming reaction was performed using the intrinsic kinetic data of the copper-impregnated hydrotalcite catalyst. The activation energy of the copper hydrotalcite catalyst obtained from the previous study results was 97.4 kJ/mol, and the pre-exponential was 5.904 × 10¹⁰. Process simulation was performed using the calculated values and showed a similar tendency to the experimental results. And the conversion rate according to the change of the reaction temperature (200 - 450 ℃) and the molar ratio of methanol and water was observed using the intrinsic kinetic data. In addition, mass and heat transfer phenomena analysis of a commercial reactor (I.D. 0.05 - 0.1m, Length 1m) was predicted through axial 2D Symmetry simulation using the power law model of the above kinetic constants.