Simulation of catalytic reactors of the fuel processor in a PEM fuel cell residential based micro cogeneration system

In this study, a simulation based on catalytic kinetics models for a fuel processor is developed. The fuel processor is hydrogen-rich syngas provider for a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), installed in Bovisa campus at the department of energy of the Politecnico di Milano. The whole set-up is a residential micro-cogeneration system constructed in ICI Caldaie Company. The first step was simulating steam methane reformer which has a special geometry in its kind, then high temperature water-gas shift reactor and finally preferential oxidation reactors. All steps of simulations are based on theoretical supported correlations extracted from available literature. The results derived from the model have acceptable accordance with the results provided by experimental tests. Moreover, an extensive literature about fuel processing with different reforming step has carried out that can be a good source for further investigation. The different steps of fuel processor are categorized and are brought in plain text.