A COMPREHENSIVE MODEL FOR REFORMING OF HYDROCARBON FUELS

Abstract

In a fuel processor hydrogen is produced by using different types of fuels by using reforming processes, for reforming of fuels mainly three types of processes are used. In present work a macroscopic mass balance is performed in order to develop comprehensive model of steam reforming at thermo neutral condition because at thermo neutral condition the efficiency of the reformer is high. In the derived model the effect of temperature on different feed conditions (such as amount of fuel to the reformer, steam to fuel ratio, oxygen to fuel ratio etc.) is given. The effect of fraction of feed to the reformer over amount of steam to fuel and oxygen to fuel ratio is also performed. In present work it is also shown that efficiency of the fuel processor is a function of the number of carbon (a), oxygen (b) and hydrogen(c) present in the fuel. Reactor modelling of steam reforming of iso-octane in a fixed bed reactor is also performed by using the reaction kinetics and input parameters available in the literature of praharso et al., 2004. In this work variation of mass flow rate of reaction components along the length of the reactor and iso-octane conversion at different feed ratio is performed.