One-dimensional modeling of heterogeneous catalytic chemical looping steam methane reforming in an adiabatic packed bed reactor

Hydrogen production via chemical looping steam methane reforming (CL-SMR) is among the most promising current technologies. This work presents the development in gPROMS Model Builder 4.1.0^® of a 1D model of an adiabatic packed bed reactor used for chemical looping reforming (CLR). The catalyst used for this process was 18 wt. % NiO with the support of Al₂O₃. A brief thermodynamic analysis using Chemical Equilibrium Application (CEA) was carried out to identify the optimum operating conditions. The model was simulated for 10 complete CL-SMR cycles. The effects of variations in temperature, pressure, gas mass velocity, nickel oxide concentration, reactor length, and particle diameter were studied to investigate the performance of the CL-SMR process under these variations. A parametric analysis was carried out for different ranges of conditions: temperatures from 600 to 1,000 K, pressure from 1 to 5 bar, gas mass velocity between 0.5 and 0.9 kg·m⁻² s⁻¹, nickel oxide concentration values between 0.1 and 1 mol·m⁻³, particle diameters between 0.7 and 1 mm, and fuel reactor (FR) lengths between 0.5 and 1.5 m. At the optimum temperature (950 K), pressure (1 bar), and steam-to-carbon molar ratio (3/1), with an increase in particle diameter from 0.7 to 1 mm, an 18% decrease in methane conversion and a 9.5% increase in hydrogen yield were observed. Similarly, with an increase in FR length from 0.5 m to 1.5 m, a delay in the temperature drop was observed.