Computation of effectiveness factor for methanol steam reforming over Cu/ZnO/Al2O3 catalyst pellet

A mathematical model was developed for a diffusion-reaction process in a spherical catalyst pellet contained in a heterogeneous packed bed reactor. The model developed was solved to predict the effectiveness factor and also to perform sensitivity analysis for steam reforming of methanol on Cu/ZnO/Al2O3 catalyst a source of hydrogen fuel. The method of orthogonal collocation was used to solve the resulting differential equation. At temperature below 473 K the effect on intra-particle diffusion limitation is reduced to the minimum indicated by the effectiveness factor being almost equal to one but as the temperature increases above 473 K there is considerable increase in the diffusion limitation effect. The effects of thermal conductivity, diffusion coefficient, catalyst size and surface temperature on effectiveness factor for the reaction process were also considered. Result indicates that catalyst size of 1.623 x 10-4 m eliminates the effect of intra-particle diffusion resistance in the pellet. The variation of effectiveness factor with Thiele modulus, showing the asymptotic values, using power law and Langmuir-Hinshelwood-Hougen-Watson (LHHW) kinetics, was predicted. The two reaction kinetics had almost the same magnitude of effectiveness factor at different Thiele modulus which indicates that they can adequately predict the reaction process.