Performance Analysis of Silica Fluidized Bed Membrane Reactor for Hydrogen Production as a Green Process Using CFD Modelling

The main aim of this study deals with the potential evaluation of a fluidized bed membrane reactor (FBMR) for hydrogen production as a clean fuel carrier via methanol steam reforming reaction, comparing its performance with other reactors including packed bed membrane reactors (PBMR), fluidized bed reactors (FBR), and packed bed reactors (PBR). For this purpose, a two-dimensional, axisymmetric numerical model was developed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to simulate the reactor performances. Model accuracy was validated by comparing the simulation results for PBMR and PB with experimental data, showing an accurate agreement within them. The model was then employed to examine the effects of key operating parameters, including reaction temperature, pressure, steam-to-methanol molar ratio, and gas volumetric space velocity, on reactor performance in terms of methanol conversion, hydrogen yield, hydrogen recovery, and selectivity. At 573 K, 1 bar, a feed molar ratio of 3/1, and a space velocity of 9000 h^-1, the PBMR reached the best results in terms of methanol conversion, hydrogen yield, hydrogen recovery, and hydrogen selectivity, such as 67.6%, 69.5%, 14.9%, and 97.1%, respectively. On the other hand, the FBMR demonstrated superior performance with respect to the latter reaching a methanol conversion of 98.3%, hydrogen yield of 95.8%, hydrogen recovery of 74.5%, and hydrogen selectivity of 97.4%. These findings indicate that the FBMR offers significantly better performance than the other reactor types studied in this work, making it a highly efficient method for hydrogen production through methanol steam reforming, and a promising pathway for clean energy generation.