Model of a non-isothermal tubular ammonia reformer for fuel cell applications

There is an increasing interest in the use of ammonia as hydrogen carrier for fuel cell applications. Ammonia decomposes catalytically into hydrogen and nitrogen without the emission of catalyst poisoning or polluting gases such as CO. Ammonia decomposition in a catalytic reformer which comprises of a Ni based wall reactor is modelled and calibrated using actual experimental data in order to compare the derived model parameters such as activation energy, pre-exponential factor/turnover frequency and order of reaction with data from literature. Turn Over Frequencies and activation energies compare well with literature values for Ni films and Ni wires.