Abstract
The present work investigates the performance of Ba0.5Sr0.5Co0.8Fe0.2O3-delta ion transport membrane for separation of oxygen and its simultaneous reaction with gaseous fuels. A 2-D axisymmetric model is considered to investigate the flow and combustion characteristics of methane in a button cell experimental model. A model that includes surface kinetics on the permeate and feed sides together with the bulk diffusion for BSCF membrane is developed and validated well against the experimental results. The effects of reaction on oxygen permeation and combustion characteristics are presented. Firstly, the nonreactive cases are investigated for oxygen permeation only. Later, the effects of increasing CH4% on the reactivity are explored. Finally, the effect of an increase in the operating temperatures on permeation of oxygen and reactivity are presented and quantified. It is found that the permeation of oxygen increases as the CH4% is increased in the sweep side because of an increase in the volume flow rates. The reactivity increased with an increase in the CH4%, however, beyond CH4 = 2% in the sweep side the amount of unburned CH4 also increased. It is also indicated that raising the operating temperatures results in shortened flame zones with more concentration in the vicinity of the ITM. Copyright (C) 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.