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Subject Area

Mechanical Power Engineering

Article Type

Original Study

Abstract

Hydrogen is widely regarded as a clean energy carrier, with methanol steam reforming (MSR) emerging as a promising route for portable and on-board applications due to its favorable operating conditions and high hydrogen yield. Reactor geometry plays a decisive role in hydrogen productivity, pressure drop, and energy efficiency, yet the balance among these factors remains insufficiently addressed. In this study, three serpentine aluminum microreactors: a plain serpentine reactor (PSR), a rhombusdimple reactor (RDR), and a hemispherical-dimple reactor (HDR) were fabricated and coated with a copper (II) oxide, zinc oxide, aluminum oxide (CuO/ZnO/Al₂O₃) catalyst to experimentally investigate the effect of dimple geometry on MSR performance. Experiments were conducted at 200–300 °C and feed flow rates of 2 – 30 ml/h with a steam to carbon ratio (S/C) - mixing ratio between water and methanol feed flow ratesfixed at 1.5. Results showed that the HDR consistently delivered the highest hydrogen production, reaching 300 ml/min at 300 °C and 2 ml/h, representing an increase of 79.6% over PSR and 57% over RDR, while maintaining moderate pressure drops. A performance-efficiency metric, termed specific production, revealed that PSR was advantageous at very low flow rates, whereas HDR outperformed at moderate and high flows, achieving up to 62 % higher efficiency than RDR and 28% higher than PSR. The RDR, despite moderate gains in hydrogen production, suffered from high pressure losses and remained the least efficient overall. These findings demonstrate the critical influence of channel geometry in optimizing MSR microreactors for efficient hydrogen production.

Keywords

Methanol Steam Reforming; dimples; Hydrogen Production; Experimental setup; catalyst coating.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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