JP10-to-hydrogen conversion using a porous media reactor

Thermal partial oxidation (TPOX) processes are commonly used in the petroleum and process industry to breakdown long hydrocarbon molecules into smaller chains, which partially decomposes the fuel into hydrogen, acetylene, methane, etc. In recent years TPOX using a porous media reactor (PMR) technology has been demonstrated successfully for several heavy hydrocarbon fuels, e.g. diesel, nheptane and gasoline. This paper focuses on thermal cracking of JP10 (aviation fuel) using a PMR for generating synthetic gas. A numerical model for a non-catalytic bi-layer (flintclay and alumina) PMR is developed. TPOX-PMR calculations are performed for premixed JP10-air under ultra-rich fuel conditions. For the representation of the JP10 chemistry, a detailed kinetics mechanism with 263 reactions and 49 species is used. Calculations are performed for mixtures with equivalence ratios between 1 and 4. A maximum mole fraction of 9% hydrogen and 17% carbon monoxide were achieved at equivalence ratio of 2. The paper also reports the effect of the equivalence ratio on flame location and on the distribution profile of major species.