Ricerc@Sapienza

Membrane reactors for hydrogen production have been extensively studied in the past years due to the interest in developing systems that are adequate for the decentralized production of high-purity hydrogen. Research in this field has been both experimental and theoretical. The aim of this work is two-fold. On the one hand, modeling work on membrane reactors that has been carried out in the past is presented and discussed, along with the constitutive equations used to describe the different phenomena characterizing the behavior of the system.

Membrane reactors for the production of pure hydrogen are complex systems whose performance is determined by the interplay between transport by convection and dispersion within the packed bed, hydrogen permeation across the membrane, and the reaction kinetics. Much effort has been devoted to the development of simplified models that combine an adequate description of the system, while maintaining a low computational cost.