Dynamic and steady-state analysis of steam reforming of methane to hydrogen in a reformer for electric-powered unmanned aerial vehicle[Modeling and analysis of autothermal reforming of methane to hydrogen in a fixed bed reformer]

Hydrogen-fueled combustion systems are becoming popular in recent years. Methane is one of the significant hydrogen supplier in nature. Thus, in the study, the natural gas-fueled reactor-assisted solid oxide fuel-cell system is configured to provide a current to load the battery to turn the propeller of an unmanned aerial vehicle in the large-scale hydrogen-onboard system. The methane-fueled reactor has not been studied under a large-scale case in literature yet. To investigate the amount of products, this paper presents about the steam-reforming performance of natural gas in steady state and transient in the reactor. The influence of vital parameters such as steam/carbon, gas feed temperatures, the amount of heat transferred to the reactor in methane steam reforming for a plug flow reactor, and a continuous stirred tank-type reactor is investigated respectively. Methane conversion, yield of hydrogen gas and H2 gas generation for different medium conditions along the reactor are studied on by using the COMSOL Multiphysics program. The steady-state and time-dependent characteristics of the steam reforming of natural gas are focused on. The high conversion ratio of methane gas is obtained by ranking the steam/carbon ratio. The released hydrogen gas molar flow rate is increasing according to the reactor volume. The achieved power provided by produced gas of H2 is 97 hp supplying the thrust force for an unmanned aerial vehicle.