Surface Combustion Modeling

Surface combustion is chemical reaction on catalyst surface (which is commonly known as Platinum or Rhodium.) Catalyst is generally used in catalytic converter for automobile to reduce NOx, CO and unburned hydrocarbon from exhaust. Moreover catalytic combustion that happens on catalyst surface generates heat that can be supplied directly to the metal surface. The heated metal would be a benefit to 'Small Size Power Generator' to induce air for combustion and solid-oxide fuel cells for power generation purpose.

Combustion mechanism was introduced by O. Deutschmann (2001) and D.G. Vlachos (2006) which included activation energy, adsorption coefficient and desorption coefficient. These constants were implement in a commercial software, ANSYS Fluent, by user-defined function for propane-air mixture and butane-air mixture reaction. Simulation results were compared with experiment and they have shown reasonable trends which can be applied to the power generator modeling.