Experimental Setup and Numerical Model

The test-rig used in this work consisted of a channel-flow catalytic reactor, which was mounted inside a high-pressure cylindrical vessel. A detailed description has been given in Sect. 2.1. 

The lack of detailed surface reaction mechanisms for propane on platinum necessitated the use of a single-step catalytic reaction coupled to a detailed gas-phase reaction mechanism. The global reaction step of Garetto et al. [1] has been developed for the total oxidation of propane to H2O and CO2 over Pt at 

Karagiannidis, Catalytic Microreactors for Portable Power Generation, Springer Theses, DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-17668-5 4, 

An optimized mechanism for homogeneous combustion of C1-C3 species by Qin et al. (70 species, 14 irreversible and 449 reversible reactions) [2] was employed for modeling gas-phase chemistry. Thermodynamic data were included in the provided scheme. Surface and gas-phase reaction rates were evaluated with Surface-CHEMKIN [3] and CHEMKIN [4] respectively. Mixture-average difihi-sion was the transport model, using the CHEMKIN transport database [5]. 

The steady, full-elliptic, 2-D laminar CFD code presented in Sect. 3.1 was used in the simulations (for details see also [6]). An orthogonal staggered grid of 450 X 140 points (x and y, respectively) was suflhcient to give a grid independent solution for the 300 x 7 mm channel domain. Uniform inlet profiles were applied for temperature, axial velocity and species mass fractions. The interfacial energy boundary conditions were prescribed wall temperature profiles these profiles were polynomial curves fitted through the thermocouple measurements of the upper and lower walls. No-slip was applied for both velocity components at the walls (y = 0 and 7 mm), while zero-Neumann conditions were used at the outlet. 

---