One-dimensional Modelling and Optimisation of an Industrial Steam Methane Reformer

Steam methane reforming is one of the most promising processes to convert natural gas into valuable products such as hydrogen. In this study, a one-dimensional model was used to model and optimise an industrial steam methane reformer, using mass and thermal balances coupled with pressure drop in the reformer tube. The proposed model was validated by the experimental data. Furthermore, the effects of flowrate and temperature of the feed, tube wall temperature, and tube dimension on the reformer performance were studied. Finally, a multiobjective optimisation was done for methane slip minimisation and hydrogen production maximisation using genetic algorithm. The results illustrated the optimum feed flowrate of 2761.9 kmol h–1 (minimum 32 mol.% produced hydrogen and maximum 0.15 mol.% unreacted methane). This is one of the few studies on investigation of steam methane reformer using a simple and effective model, and genetic algorithm. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Atomic Layer Deposition of Al₂O₃ on WSe₂ Functionalized by Titanyl Phthalocyanine

To deposit an ultrathin dielectric onto WSe₂, monolayer titanyl phthalocyanine (TiOPc) is deposited by molecular beam epitaxy as a seed layer for atomic layer deposition (ALD) of Al₂O₃ on WSe₂. TiOPc molecules are arranged in a flat monolayer with 4-fold symmetry as measured by scanning tunneling microscopy. ALD pulses of trimethyl aluminum and H₂O nucleate on the TiOPc, resulting in a uniform deposition of Al₂O₃, as confirmed by atomic force microscopy and cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy. The field-effect transistors (FETs) formed using this process have a leakage current of 0.046 pA/μm² at 1 V gate bias with 3.0 nm equivalent oxide thickness, which is a lower leakage current than prior reports. The n-branch of the FET yielded a subthreshold swing of 80 mV/decade