Heat and mass transfer characterization of porous copper fiber sintered felt as catalyst support for methanol steam reforming

Wei Zhou, Qinghui Wang, Qingfu Qiu, Yong Tang, Jiawei Tu, K. S. Hui, K. N. Hui

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

35 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

A novel porous copper fiber sintered felt (PCFSF) as catalyst support is fabricated to construct the methanol steam reforming microreactor for hydrogen production. In this study, the heat and mass transfer properties of PCFSF with different porosities is experimentally investigated. The results show that the PCFSF with different porosities exhibits good uniform heat transfer. The thermal conductivity is decreased with increasing porosity in the porosity range of 70-90%. With lower gas feed rate, no great change of the pressure drop is observed. However, larger pressure drop is produced with the higher gas feed rates. Moreover, we found that the resident time in the PCFSF is gradually decreased with increasing porosity. Much longer resident time is obtained when the lower gas feed rate is selected. The PCFSF with 80% porosity as catalyst support presents better reaction performance because of the enhancement of heat and mass transfer resulting from the unique porous structure.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)136-142
Number of pages7
JournalFuel
Volume145
Early online date24 Dec 2014
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Apr 2015

Keywords

  • Catalyst support
  • Heat and mass transfer
  • Methanol steam reforming
  • Porosity
  • Porous copper fiber sintered felt

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