Ammonia Decomposition for Hydrogen Production in Catalytic Microchannels with Slip/Jump Effects

Authors

1 Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada

2 Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, M5B 2K3, Canada

Abstract

The rarefaction effects on the catalytic decomposition of NH3 in ruthenium–coated planar microchannels is numerically simulated in the Knudsen number range 0.015-0.03. A colocated finite–volume method is used to solve the governing equations. A concentration jump model derived from the kinetic theory of gases is employed to account for the concentration discontinuity at the reactive walls. A detailed surface reaction mechanism for ammonia decomposition on ruthenium along with a multi-component species diffusion model are used to study the effects of concentration jump coupled with velocity slip and temperature jump on the walls. The velocity-slip, temperature-jump and concentration-jump boundary conditions have miscellaneous effects on flow, temperature and species concentration fields. The results suggest that the velocity-slip boundary condition only slightly influences the species distribution at the edge of the Knudsen layer as well as inside the channel, while the temperature-jump boundary condition affects the heat and mass transfer characteristics the most. The concentration-jump effect, on the other hand, can counter balance the temperature-jump effects in some cases.

Keywords

Journal of Applied Fluid Mechanics
Volume 8, Issue 4
September 2015
Pages 703-712

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