(112a) Simulation of Pt/Ni Stratified Bed Catalysts for the Production of Hydrogen by Catalytic Partial Oxidation of Methane

A catalyst consisting of a platinum combustion bed followed by a nickel reforming bed achieves high hydrogen yields with little degradation at a cost that is fractions of the cost of the conventional rhodium catalyst. It has been shown as a proof-of-concept where the platinum and nickel beds were of equal size. This work investigates the effect of relative bed lengths of the platinum and nickel catalysts. Since the oxygen is consumed in millimeters, a platinum catalyst that is much smaller than the nickel catalyst is sufficient to carry out the partial oxidation reaction. Due to the number of process variables, an infinite amount of experiments could be carried out in order to optimize the relative bed lengths. Instead, simulations could be carried out to reduce the financial and time constraints of doing so many experiments. As a first step towards simulation, an elementary step surface reaction mechanism has been developed for reactions of methane on nickel. A screening mechanism was generated from thermodynamic constraints, refined, and validated against experimental results to achieve a working mechanism.