THE EFFECT OF FUEL EVAPORATION ON THE GAS-PHASE KINETICS IN THE MIXING REGION OF A HYDROCARBON REFORMER

摘要

Diesel reforming technology has been proposed as an option for hydrogen production for fuel cell applications due to its high volumetric energy density. Autothermal reforming, which requires oxygen and steam, is the most appropriate method to reform diesel. Reactant mixture preparation has been one of major challenges in diesel reforming. Reactants should be mixed properly upstream of the reformer under conditions that minimize gas-phase reactions that could lead to significant ethylene production, since ethylene can lead to deposits on the catalysts. Previously, this mixing process was investigated by using the coupled CFD-kinetics simulation2 with the simplifying assumption that the fuel was pre-vaporized. Another constraint in that analysis was the use of n-heptane as a surrogate fuel, due to the limitation in the number of chemical species that could be included in the chemical mechanism in the CFD analysis using the ANSYS Fluent v13 software package available at that time.