The Influence of Slight Protuberances in a Micro-Tube Reactor on Methane/Moist Air Catalytic Combustion

Ruirui Wang, Jingyu Ran, Xuesen Du, Juntian Niu and Wenjie Qi
Additional contact information
Ruirui Wang: Key Laboratory of Low-Grade Energy Utilization Technologies and Systems of Ministry of Education, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China
Jingyu Ran: Key Laboratory of Low-Grade Energy Utilization Technologies and Systems of Ministry of Education, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China
Xuesen Du: Key Laboratory of Low-Grade Energy Utilization Technologies and Systems of Ministry of Education, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China
Juntian Niu: College of Power Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China
Wenjie Qi: College of Power Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China

Energies, 2016, vol. 9, issue 6, 1-17

Abstract: The combustion characteristics of methane/moist air in micro-tube reactors with different numbers and shapes of inner wall protuberances are investigated in this paper. The micro-reactor with one rectangular protuberance (six different sizes) was studied firstly, and it is shown that reactions near the protuberance are mainly controlled by diffusion, which has little effect on the outlet temperature and methane conversion rate. The formation of cavities and recirculation zones in the vicinity of protuberances leads to a significant increase of the Arrhenius reaction rate of CH 4 and gas velocity. Next, among the six different simulated conditions (0–5 rectangular protuberances), the micro-tube reactor with five rectangular protuberances shows the highest methane conversion rate. Finally, the effect of protuberance shape on methane/moist air catalytic combustion is confirmed, and it is found that the protuberance shape has a greater influence on methane conversion rate than the number of protuberances. The methane conversion rate in the micro-tube decreases progressively in the following order: five triangular slight protuberances > five rectangular protuberances > five trapezoidal protuberances > smooth tube. In all tests of methane/moist air combustion conditions, the micro-tube with five triangular protuberances has the peak efficiency and is therefore recommended for high efficiency reactors.

Keywords: micro-tube reactor; slight protuberances; methane/moist air; catalytic combustion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/9/6/421/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/9/6/421/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:9:y:2016:i:6:p:421-:d:71069

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().