Title: Energy and exergy evaluations of catalytic dry reforming of methane for syngas production in fixed-bed reactors

Authors: Reiyu Chein; Wen-Huai Hsu

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung 40227, Taiwan ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung 40227, Taiwan

Abstract: The energy and exergy characteristics of dry reforming of methane (DRM) were numerically studied in this study in a tubular fixed-bed reactor under heat supply from uniform temperature furnace or uniform wall heat flux. Variations in enthalpy, entropy and exergy were computed based on non-equilibrium thermodynamics for chemical reactions. The heat supply, heat of chemical reaction and entropy generation due to irreversibility were the sources that caused changes in enthalpy, entropy and exergy between the reactor inlet and outlet. Based on the simulated results it was found that the chemical reaction is the most dominant factor for entropy generation. It was also found that exergy at reactor outlet depends on the heat supply and a minimum value can be found due to contribution variations from the gas species involved in DRM.

Keywords: syngas; dry reforming of methane; DRM; uniform temperature furnace; uniform wall heat flux; chemical energy and exergy efficiencies.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEX.2019.102179

International Journal of Exergy, 2019 Vol.30 No.2, pp.157 - 181

Received: 22 Sep 2018
Accepted: 12 May 2019
Published online: 09 Sep 2019 *

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