Steam reforming of methane over Pt/Rh based wire mesh catalyst in single channel reformer for small scale syngas production

The purpose of this study is to investigate a small scale steam methane reformer for syngas production for a micro combined heat and power (mCPH) unit under different operational conditions. The study presents an experimental analysis of the performance of a specially built single channel of a catalytic parallel plate type heat exchanger (CPHE) reformer stack, where coated Pt/Rh based wire mesh is used as a catalyst. Heat is supplied to the endothermic reaction with infrared electric heaters. All the experiments were performed under atmospheric pressure and at stable operating conditions. The following parameters are considered in the experiment: catalyst temperature, gas hourly space velocity (GHSV) and steam to carbon ratio (S/C). The catalyst was tested at temperatures between 600 and 900°C, S/C ratios between 2 and 5 and GHSV between 319 and 2201 1/h. The experimental results are used to evaluate the effect of flow maldistribution in a CPHE reformer stack on the CH4 conversion and H2 yield.