Chemical Engineering Research and Design 197 (2023) 738–749

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Chemical Engineering Research and Design

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cherd

Investigation on mixing characteristics of

hydrogen and natural gas fuel based on SMX static
]]
]]]]]]
]]

mixer☆
⁎
Yongzhen Liu a, Anas Rao a,b, Fanhua Ma a, , Xigui Li d, Jinhua Wang c,
Qiuhong Xiao a
a
School of Vehicle and Mobility, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Engineering & Technology, Lahore 54890, Pakistan
c
State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Flow in Power Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
d
College of Chemical Engineering, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350116, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Hydrogen, as a carbon-free fuel, is significantly for replacing fossil fuels and reaching the
Received 5 May 2023 ultimate goal of carbon neutrality, and is commonly expected to play a major role in future
Received in revised form 21 July 2023 energy supply. Blending hydrogen into natural gas pipeline networks for end-user con­
Accepted 24 July 2023 sumption as a means of delivering pure hydrogen to the market which not only improves the
Available online 27 July 2023 utilization rate of hydrogen energy, but also reduces the cost of hydrogen transportation. A
three-dimensional model of the blending the natural gas and hydrogen with SMX mixing
Keywords: elements is developed to obtain homogeneous mixed gas injected into the natural gas pipeline
Blended fuel network. The Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) method is employed to investigate the
Hydrogen transportation flow physics in the static mixer, which was verified by experiments. The numerical results are
Hydrogen blending volume fraction in good agreement with the experimental data. Based on the static mixer model, the coupling
Static mixer relationship between mixing performance and the crucial parameters including the number
Flow physics of mixing elements, operating conditions and hydrogen blending volume fraction is analyzed
Mixing elements in detail, and a compromise design scheme is proposed under the studied conditions to im­
prove the mixing performance of natural gas and hydrogen.
© 2023 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Institution of Chemical Engineers.

significance for replacing fossil fuel and reducing pollutants

1. Introduction
and greenhouse gas emissions (Acar and Dincer, 2020; Midilli
et al., 2005). Safe transport is one of the bottlenecks re­
A significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is a
stricting the large-scale application of hydrogen energy. The
crucial way to alleviate the increasingly serious problem of
transport mode of hydrogen is closely related to the trans­
global warming. The world energy mix is currently marching
port distance and quantity, including road and rail trans­
towards renewable energy technologies, and as one of the
portation of gaseous and liquid hydrogen, ocean
most promising clean energy sources, hydrogen is of great
transportation of hydrogen, hydrogen pipelines (Gerboni,
2016). In terms of long-range, large-scale hydrogen produc­
☆ tion and consumption, it is currently considered the best way
Foundation item: the Major Science and Technology Project of
Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China (No.2021ZD0025) to solve the problem of large-scale hydrogen energy con­
and the Foundation Key Laboratory of Automotive Safety and sumption by using wind and solar energy to generate hy­
Energy of Tsinghua University of China (No. KFY2230) drogen and adding hydrogen in a certain proportion into the
⁎
Corresponding author. natural gas network for the utilization of factories, gas
E-mail address: mafh@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn (F. Ma).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cherd.2023.07.040
0263-8762/© 2023 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Institution of Chemical Engineers.
 Chemical Engineering Research and Design 197 (2023) 738–749
Nomenclature
A area of cross-section at the static mixer
outlet
c volume concentration at the static mixer
outlet
c volume average concentration at the static
mixer outlet
D1 inlet pipe diameters of natural gas, mm
D2 inlet pipe diameters of hydrogen, mm
KL pressure loss coefficient of static mixer
L1 static mixer inlet section length, mm
L2 static mixer blending section length, mm
L3 static mixer outlet section length, mm
∆P pressure loss
ReD reynolds number based on pipe diameter
t across-bar thickness of mixing element, mm
u velocity, m/s
σ standard deviation
ρ density
stations, and urban communities (Witkowski et al., 2018).
This method only helps to relieve the greenhouse gas emis­
sions, but also facilitates the hydrogen consumption capacity
of the market (Melaina et al., 2013; Abe et al., 2019; Yue et al.,
2021). Hydrogen blending into the natural gas pipeline will
bring some potential risks, such as easier leakage, hydrogen
brittleness and so on (Erdener et al., 2023; Abbas et al., 2021;
Vaccariello et al., 2021). A low hydrogen concentrations (less
than 5% −15% hydrogen by volume) does not significantly
increasing risks associated with utilization of devices, such
as household appliances, overall public safety, or the dur­
ability and integrity of the existing natural gas pipeline net­
work (Hde Vries et al., 2017; Altfeld and Pinchbeck, 2013). It is
necessary to ensure that the mixture of gas is uniform when
blending hydrogen to avoid the risk of local high hydrogen
fraction ratio (Eames et al., 2022; Cristello et al., 2023).
Therefore, in order to further expand the utilization market
of hydrogen energy industry, it is necessary to conduct ex­
tensive study and testing on some basic equipment of
blending hydrogen into natural gas pipeline networks.
For the existing natural gas pipe network system, there are
mainly includes gas supply station, gas storage equipment, gas
transmission pipeline, pressure regulating equipment, central
gas distribution control system, solenoid valve, community
end users, maintenance and management departments
(Gondal and Sahir, 2012; Su et al., 2018). In order to evaluate
the safe and economical transportation of blending hydrogen
into the natural gas pipeline network, some crucial factors
must be considered, including the maximum safe transporta­
tion distance, inlet pressure, gas velocity, gas transmission
capacity, flow characteristics, ambient temperature, geometric
characteristics of the pipeline, market, economy, technology
and network design (Mahajan et al., 2022; Quintino et al., 2021).
The volume ratio of hydrogen added to natural gas pipelines is
mainly affected by supply chain conditions and end-user tol­
erance (Quarton and Samsatli, 2020). In addition, the gas flow
rate, velocity of hydrogen injection and the blending device
should be considered to improve the homogeneous mixing
performance of large-scale long-distance hydrogen transmis­
sion and distribution pipeline network. In the case of slow
laminar flow, a worst-case scenario with the stratification of
natural gas and hydrogen may be presented, but the
739
homogeneous blend will be achieved at a distance of 4000
times of the nominal diameter (Wahl and Kallo, 2020). The
homogenized mixture of hydrogen and natural gas in the pipe
network can not only provide stable fuel combustion for re­
sidential users, but also provide the use of hydrogen fuel cell
vehicles (Ogden et al., 2018). In addition to being used directly
as fuel, hydrogen can be extracted from natural gas-hydrogen
mixtures close to the point of end use through downstream
separation and purification technologies for fuel cells and
other industrial supplies (Nordio et al., 2021). The conventional
technology for hydrogen separation is pressure swing ad­
sorption (PSA) (Burgers et al., 2022). A hydrogen transport
method based on Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers (LOHC) can
be transported via long distances, which has attracted dra­
matically more attention than conventional storage systems
(Niermann et al., 2019). Therefore, the natural gas and hy­
drogen mixing device should be widely studied to obtain more
homogeneous gas mixtures.
For a mixing device, the mixing process is mainly completed
by the static mixer. Static mixers are widely used in the mixing
of two or more streams of fluids including liquid-liquid, gas-li­
quid and liquid-solid to achieve full mixing between fluids by
producing cutting, rotation, and remixing (Thakur et al., 2003;
Habchi et al., 2019; Ghanem et al., 2014; Valdés et al., 2022; Doh
et al., 2013). Static mixers were not widely used in the process
industry until the 1970 s. A patent dating to 1874 describes a
single-element, multilayer motionless mixer used to mix gas­
eous fuel with air (Sutherland, 1874). An early French patent
used staged, helical elements to promote mixing in a tube, and
another French patent shows a multielement design for solids
blending (Les Consommateurs de Petrole, 1931; Aanjaneya and
Agrawal, 2023; Forte et al., 2019). In the early 1950 s, a segmented
element design for facilitating heat transfer was patented (Lynn,
1958). Since then, Major petrochemical companies had devel­
opment efforts and presumably utilized their designs internally
in the decades proceeding the commercial availability (Tollar,
1966; Veasey, 1968). Zhuang et al (Zhuang et al., 2020). simulated
a novel dual-swirl static mixer for nitrogen oxide removal
technology, and the results obtained using Particle Image Velo­
cimetry (PIV) correlated well with the results obtained from si­
mulation. Barrue´et al (Barrué et al., 2001; Wang et al., 2022;
Solano et al., 2011). compared the performance of Oxynator,
Sulzer SMI, and Chemineer KMA three gas-gas static mixers.
The results showed that the Oxynator mixer created the highest
turbulence intensity compared to the KMA and SMI mixers.
Heyouni investigated the hydrodynamic behavior of two-phase
flows in a static mixer in a horizontal pipe and tested the per­
formance of the static mixer with different elements arrange­
ments. The results show that the pressure drop depends on the
structure of the static mixer, liquid velocity and gas velocity
(Heyouni et al., 2002). Meijer (Meijer et al., 2012) and Pust (Pust
et al., 2006) et al. quantitatively measured the performance of
SMX static mixers and showed that increasing cross-bars results
in more compact mixers, but at the cost of increasing pressure
loss. In hydrogen blending, a relatively large mixing container is
always used to increase the mixing contact area and time, im­
proving the mixing uniformity (Judd and Pinchbeck, 2016). Kong
studied the mixing behavior of hydrogen and natural gas in a
three-dimensional helical static mixer, analyzed the effects of
mixing unit number, mixing unit torsion angle, and mixing unit
arrangement on mixing uniformity, and optimized the gas
mixer to improve mixing performance (Kong et al., 2021).
The SMX static mixer is not only suitable for operation in
a laminar flow regime, but also can increase the turbulence
740 Chemical Engineering Research and Design 197 (2023) 738–749
Fig. 1 – Geometry of SMX static mixer assembly.
intensity of mixing in turbulent regimes, promoting more
uniform blending (Hammoudi et al., 2008). According to the
requirements of engineering applications, the gas transmis­
sion capacity is more than 5000 tons/year, and the pressure
loss is not greater than 1.0%. Compared to other static mixers
such as SMV, the pressure drop of the SMX mixer is relatively
small. In addition, the SMX static mixer can also achieve
radial mixing, increase mixing turbulence intensity, achieve
uniform mixing, and meet the requirements of mixing uni­
formity. Therefore, SMX static mixer is used in this paper to
study the blending behavior of natural gas and hydrogen.
The evolution of velocity profile and turbulence intensity is
closely related to the structure of the SMX static mixers. It is
necessary to investigate the internal coupling relationship
between the mixing performance parameters (including
mixing uniformity and pressure loss) of the SMX static mixer
and the structural parameters and operating conditions of
the mixer, providing theoretical support for the development
of natural gas and hydrogen blending device.
A three-dimensional model of the SMX static mixer for
uniform mixing of natural gas and hydrogen was established,
and the feasibility of the model was verified by comparing the
mixing behavior data obtained from numerical simulation
and experiment. Based on the model, the internal coupling
relationship between the pressure drop and the crucial para­
meters such as number of mixing elements, gas flow velocity,
inlet pressure deviation and hydrogen blending volume frac­
tion is studied, and the flow physics inside the static mixer is
clarified. Finally, the compromise scheme and operation
conditions of the static mixer design are obtained to improve
the mixing performance of natural gas and hydrogen.
2. Investigation model
A typical standard SMX (Sulzer Chemtech) static mixer as­
sembly with three internal mixing elements is shown in Fig. 1.
The static mixer assembly is composed of three parts, namely
Fig. 2 – Schematic diagram of inlet and mixing element.
inlet section, mixing section and outlet section. The lengths of
the three parts are represented by L1, L2 and L3, which are
800 mm, 1200 mm and 1600 mm respectively. Fig. 2 depicts the
detailed geometric design of the inlet section and the mixing
element. The number of mixing elements needs to be de­
termined according to the requirements of blending uniformity
and pressure drop, and the mixing performance can be im­
proved by changing the number of mixing elements. In the
following research work, the impact of mixing elements on
mixing performance was studied, with a maximum of 6 mixing
elements. The inlet section is divided into natural gas inlet and
hydrogen inlet. Natural gas is the main airflow and hydrogen is
the follow-up airflow. The inlet pipe diameters D1 and D2 of
natural gas and hydrogen are 310 mm and 98 mm, respectively.
In order to achieve uniform pre-mixing effect, hydrogen is in­
jected into natural gas by means of porous injection, as shown
in Fig. 2(a). The jet holes are divided into 5 rows, each row has 8
holes evenly distributed, and the hole diameter is 20 mm. In­
side the mixing section, three internal mixing elements are
placed vertically and staggered at 90°. Each mixing element
consists of four crossing bars over the width, forming two X-
shaped pairs of cross-bars, each at ± 45° with the axis of the
pipe, as shown in Fig. 2(b). The aspect ratio, length to diameter
L/D is equal to 1, the static mixer inlet diameter D1 = 310 mm, a
cross-bar thickness of t = 2 mm. The width of the cross-bars
next to the tube walls is 85 mm whereas all others are 70 mm
wide. The outlet section of the SMX static mixer uses a spline
curve smooth transition design to reduce the pipe diameter
from 310 mm to 250 mm. The length of the straight pipe section
of the outlet section is 1200 mm, which is more than 4 times
the pipe diameter. A mixture of natural gas and hydrogen is
discharged through the outlet plane. In the designed operating
conditions, the natural gas inlet velocity of the static mixer is
10 m/s, and the corresponding volume flowrate is 2717 m3/h.
The maximum hydrogen volume fraction is 20%, the corre­
sponding inlet gas velocity of hydrogen is 19.2 m/s, and the
volume flowrate is 543 m3/h.
 Chemical Engineering Research and Design 197 (2023) 738–749
Fig. 3 – Geometry assembly of flow-follow mixing
equipment.
3. Experimental setup and numerical
validation
3.1. Experimental setup
The mixture of hydrogen and natural gas is flammable and
explosive. In this paper, the mixture of hydrogen and ni­
trogen is chosen to replace the mixing of hydrogen and
natural gas to verify the mixing effect of SMX static mixture,
which are safer and more accessible than the hydrogen and
natural gas. The SMX static mixer is integrated into the flow-
follow mixing skid-mounted device to realize the real-time
monitoring and adjustment of the two components of the
gas, achieving the purpose of accurate and uniform mixing.
Fig. 3 illustrates the geometry assembly of flow-follow
mixing equipment. Hydrogen and nitrogen are respectively
stored in the gas storage tanks. The green arrow represents
the hydrogen flow path, and the blue arrow represents the
nitrogen route. During the test operation, the hydrogen
pressure in the gas storage tank is not less than 0.6 MPa, and
the corresponding nitrogen pressure is not less than 2.0 MPa.
Nitrogen flow pipeline is installed with pressure reducing
valve, ball valve, filter, roots flow meter, regulating valve.
After filter and flow measurement, the regulating valve can
adjust the flow of nitrogen gas to meet the mixing ratio. Si­
milarly, the hydrogen flow pipeline is installed with ball
valves, pneumatic cut-off valves, filters, flow meter, voltage
regulators, regulating valves, one-way valves. After filtering,
measuring and adjusting the pressure, the hydrogen pres­
sure reaches the desired pressure, and the regulating valve
can adjust the flow of hydrogen to meet the mixing volume
ratio. The check valve prevents the mixture from flowing
back into the hydrogen pipeline.
After hydrogen and nitrogen were mixed in a SMX static
mixer, gas samples were taken at the downstream A-A cross
section to test the hydrogen concentration distribution
across the pipe outlet section, as shown in Fig. 3. The volume
fraction of hydrogen in the mixture can be obtained by a gas
chromatograph. In order to obtain the mixing uniformity at
the pipeline section more accurately, 16 measuring points on
the A-A cross section are placed for gas sampling, as shown
in Fig. 4. In order to minimize the interference of sampling
tube on gas, sampling tube with small diameter should be
used as much as possible. In this paper, the diameter of
sampling tube is 4 mm. In addition, the distance between
adjacent sample tube centers is greater than 2 5 times the
sample tube radius. This has little effect on the gas in the
741
Fig. 4 – Distribution of sampling points in A-A cross section.
adjacent sampling region of the sample tube, and the inter­
ference between the sampling tubes is almost negligible. The
positions of these measuring points are uniformly arranged
in a ring, and the distance from the center of the pipeline is
60 mm and 110 mm, respectively. During gas sampling, fill
the sampling bag with mixed gas and discharge it three
times, in order to discharge excess gas and clean the sam­
pling bag. The diameter of the sampling tube is 4 mm, and
the length is 2000 mm from A-A section to B-B section. The
length of the sampling pipe exceeds 4 times the pipe dia­
meter, so the influence of the elbow at B-B location on the
flow can be ignored. Sampling bags is connected at the exit of
the sampling tube on section B-B. In order to easily distin­
guish and collect the mixed gas at different locations, the
sampling bag and the sampling tube are numbered, as shown
in Fig. 5.
3.2. Numerical calculation method
Three-dimensional (3-D) numerical simulations of the steady
flows for fluid in the SMX static mixer were carried out using
the commercial CFD software ANSYS FLUENT 19.0. This
solver is based on finite volume method and can be used to
solve the Reynolds Average Navier-Stokes (RANS) equation
with a pressure-based, coupled SIMPLE (Semi-Implicit
Method for Pressure-Linked Equations) algorithm. The gov­
erning equations include mass conservation equation, mo­
mentum conservation equation and energy conservation
equation. Denoting the velocity as ui , the density i . The mass
conservation equation is:
i
+ ( i ui ) = Sm
t (1)
The conservation of momentum is satisfied:
( ui ) ( ui uj ) p ui uj
+ = + µe + + fi
t xj xi xj xj xi (2)
where fi is the gravitational body force acting on the flow,
and µe is the dynamic viscosity.
The energy equation is derived in terms of the evolution
of enthalpy h,
( h) ( ui h) ( K) ( ui K ) p
+ + + = (µe h ) + Ri
t xi t xi t (3)
where K is the kinetic energy. In this study, temperature
variation is small, so the cp of each species is set as a con­
stant. The temperature is obtained by iteration of enthalpy h.
The flow velocity of natural gas in the pipeline is not more
than 30 m/s, which is an incompressible flow. The convection
742 Chemical Engineering Research and Design 197 (2023) 738–749
Fig. 5 – Distribution of sampling points in A-A cross section.
terms in the governing equations are discretized by a second
order upwind scheme, and the gradient of solution variable
at the cell center is determined by least square cell based. On
the species model, species transport is selected to add dif­
ferent mixture-template. The residual convergence limit of
the governing equations is set to be lesser than 10−6. Nitrogen
and hydrogen inlets are specified as velocity inlets boundary
conditions. The nitrogen inlet is set as the main flow, the
hydrogen inlet as the second flow, and the outlet boundary is
set as the outflow. The wall surfaces are set as no-slip and
adiabatic wall boundary conditions. Hydrogen is very small
relative to atomic mass, and the buoyancy force it receives in
the flow process is much greater than the gravity of hydrogen
itself. So the influence of gravity is ignored in this article. The
flow state of the gas mixture in SMX static mixer is turbulent,
and the realizable k-ε turbulence model is in good agreement
with the experimental data (Judd and Pinchbeck, 2016).
Therefore, the realizable k-ε turbulence model is employed in
this paper. In addition, the mixed gas of hydrogen and ni­
trogen is a single-phase (miscible) gas flow, and the species
transport model is used to solve the nitrogen and hydrogen
mixing behavior.
3.2.1. Mesh resolution verification
Meshes for 3-D simulation computation are generated with a
commercial software, ANSYS MESH. The computational do­
main for this SMX static mixer consists of multiblock grid,
which are divided into unstructured grid and structured grid,
as shown in Fig. 6. Since the geometry structure of inlet
section and mixing section is complicated, unstructured
mesh is used to improve the mesh quality. The outlet geo­
metry of the mixer is relatively simple and uses a structured
grid. According to the flow physics of SMX static mixer, ni­
trogen and hydrogen in the mixing region constantly change
the flow direction through the mixing elements, and a large
Fig. 6 – Computational domain mesh of SMX static mixer.
number of vortices are generated. The scale of the grid in the
computational domain is closely related to the numerical
results, especially in gas mixing regions. In order to improve
the accuracy of the numerical results, the mesh refinement is
employed in the inlet and mixing regions of the mixer. In
addition, the mesh scale in the boundary layer is crucial to
the accuracy of numerical calculation and the prediction of
flow field. In this study, the distance of first layer mesh from
wall surface is less than 6 × 10−5 m to satisfy the first cell y+
from the solid wall less than 2. Reynolds number of SMX
static mixer is 1.7 × 105 with nitrogen gas velocity and inlet
diameter, and hence fully turbulent state can be assumed in
the flow of the whole computational domain.
Mesh density has great influence on the accuracy of nu­
merical simulation. In order to improve the accuracy of the
numerical simulation analysis of the model, the validation of
grid independence has been conducted via variations of
global grid node number in computational domain. In the
process of mesh increment, keeping height of the first layer
mesh from wall surface 6 × 10−5 m, the mesh quantity of each
component increases in proportion to the increment of the
whole mesh quantity. Taking the SMX static mixer with
three mixing elements as an example, the cell unit sizes are
1.0 mm, 2.0 mm, 3.0 mm, 4.0 mm, 5.0 mm, and 6.0 mm, re­
spectively, and the corresponding number of computational
domain grids is 25 million, 16 million, 11 million, 8.2 million,
5.8 million and 4.3 million respectively. Furthermore, the
volume fraction ratio of natural gas and hydrogen blending is
selected to be 4:1 (natural gas accounts for 80%, hydrogen
accounts for 20%). Validation results of mesh independence
are depicted as Fig. 7. It is found that the total pressure
loss through the mixing elements gradually decreases
with the number of grid nodes in the computational domain,
and the downstream velocity of the mixing elements shows
an opposite trend. When the number of grids in the calcu­
lation domain reaches 16 million, the numerical simulation
results are basically unchanged with the increase of the
number of grids. As for 16 and 25 million nodes, the devia­
tions of total pressure loss and velocity at mixing elements
downstream are 0.103% and 0.145% respectively, which are
both about 0.1%. It is concluded that 16 million grid nodes
can meet the requirements for prediction of SMX static mixer
flow characteristics.
 Chemical Engineering Research and Design 197 (2023) 738–749
Fig. 7 – Flow characteristic parameters of SMX static mixer with different mesh nodes.
3.3. Numerical validation and error analysis
According to the experimental measurement results, the
volume flow rate of the nitrogen pipeline is 1281 Nm3/h. The
corresponding inlet velocity of the nitrogen pipeline is 9.7 m/
s with the inlet pressure 0.1 MPa. Hydrogen as the second
flow, the volume fraction of hydrogen to nitrogen is 18.2%. In
this working condition, the volume flow rate of hydrogen is
285 Nm3/h, the corresponding inlet velocity of hydrogen is
16.9 m/s with the inlet pressure 0.15Mpa. To verify the pre­
diction ability of numerical method for mixing effect and
internal flow characteristics of static mixer, hydrogen molar
concentration parameters at outlet section of static mixer
were selected as comparative analysis. At the outlet plane of
the static mixer, the same position and region as the 16 ex­
perimental sampling pipes were selected for integral aver­
aging, and the hydrogen concentration distribution at the
whole outlet section was obtained. The hydrogen con­
centration distributions of numerical simulation and ex­
perimental data with error bars at static mixer outlet plane
are shown in Fig. 8. The experimental measured inlet volume
fraction of hydrogen at the inlet of the static mixer is 18.2%,
Fig. 8 – Hydrogen concentration distribution at static mixer
outlet plane.
743
and the mean arithmetic value of the hydrogen volume
fraction obtained from 16 sampling points at the outlet plane
of the static mixer is about 17.5%. The overall deviation be­
tween numerical simulation and experimental measurement
results is 3.85%, less than 5%, which meets the requirements
of error accuracy.
The deviation between the numerical results and the ex­
perimental data mainly derived from two aspects, one is the
model error selected in the numerical simulation, and the
other is the error generated by the instruments in the ex­
perimental testing. The error of the numerical model is
mainly caused by the ideal gas model, mixing model and the
turbulence model, and the error of this part is estimated to be
no more than 2.0%. The error of measurement data mainly
originates from the following aspects, including the mea­
surement accuracy of gas chromatograph, the volume frac­
tion of water vapor in the air, the oxygen content of the taken
gas mixture sample, the measurement accuracy of the vol­
tage regulator, the flow meter and the flow digital display
instrument. The gas chromatograph measurement accuracy
is ± 0.1%. The measuring accuracy of voltage regulator, flow
meter and flow digital display instrument is ± 0.5%, ± 1.0%
and ± 0.5% respectively. In the data processing of gas chro­
matograph, it is necessary to consider the proportion of
water vapor in the sampling gas. According to the pressure
and temperature in the air, the volume fraction of water
vapor in the air is about 2%. In addition, a small amount of air
enters the sampling gas inevitably, and the content of ni­
trogen in this part of the air can be calculated through the
oxygen content. The measured nitrogen content of the mix­
ture is corrected by subtracting a small amount of nitrogen
carried in the air. According to the error evaluation, the
comprehensive error of the measurement system is no more
than 2.35%. It is less than the overall deviation of experi­
mental and numerical simulation results, indicating that the
experimental measurement data meet the accuracy re­
quirements.
In addition, Fig. 8 also shows the distribution trend of
hydrogen fraction at 16 sampling points obtained by nu­
merical simulation and experimental measurement is basi­
cally consistent. The maximum error of a single measuring
point is 4.3%, which is also less than 5%, which can cover
accuracy requirements of this numerical investigations.
744 Chemical Engineering Research and Design 197 (2023) 738–749
These results suggest that the numerical prediction method
employed is capable for predicting flow characteristics and
mixing performance of SMX static mixer.
4. Results and discussion
The reliability of the numerical method is verified by the
experimental data of SMX static mixer in present work. In
terms of static mixture performance evaluation, Pressure
drop and mixing uniformity are the crucial parameters to
evaluate the performance of mixer. The pressure drop of the
mixer represents the penalty in the mixing process, and the
mixing uniformity reflects the mixing effect. A good static
mixer can achieve better mixing uniformity under the con­
dition of low pressure drop. A usual quantitative measure of
homogeneity is the coefficient of variation (COV) of the
concentration field in a cross-section, which is defined as
Eq. (4). Therefore, the variation of pressure drop and COV is
the quantitative parameter to measure the mixing perfor­
mance of static mixer.
1/A ( A (c c )2 dA )
COV = = mixing uniformity comprehensively, four blending elements
c c
where σ, c, c , A, are respectively the standard deviation, the
volume concentration at the outlet, the volume average
concentration at the outlet, the area of cross-section at the
outlet. For the determination of the COV, all valid points in
the mapping for the cross-section were taken into account.
The number of mixing units, the operating conditions of
mixer (including flow velocity and inlet pressure) and the
volume fraction ratio of natural gas and hydrogen blending
are significant to determine the mixing performance of the
static mixer. Parameters analysis have been conducted to
investigate the association among the pressure drop, COV
and influencing factors.
4.1. Effect of the number of mixing elements
In order to investigate the effect of mixing elements number
on the mixing performance of natural gas and hydrogen
blending in SMX static mixer with steady flow, analyses on
pressure drop from inlet to outlet of static mixer and the
variation of COV at outlet cross-section have been im­
plemented, as schematically in Fig. 9. The number of mixed
elements varies from 1 to 6, specifying a volume fraction
ratio of hydrogen to natural gas of 17.5%, gas inlet velocities
of 10 m/s and hydrogen inlet velocities of 16.8 m/s. With the
increase of mixing elements number, the pressure drop of
the mixed gas through the SMX static mixer rises linearly,
indicating that the loss through each mixing element remain
constant. The COV represents the dispersion degree of data.
The smaller the COV value is, the better the mixing effect will
be. COV decreases along with the increase of mixing ele­
ments, and the decreasing amplitude reduces gradually. This
indicates that hydrogen and natural gas are more evenly
mixed with the increase of mixing elements, but the mixing
efficiency of downstream each mixing elements is gradually
weakened. When the mixed gas passes through three mixing
elements, the COV value is 2.03%. After four mixing ele­
ments, the COV value is reduced to 0.91%, less than 1%, and
the pressure drop is about 1kPa under this condition. The
increasing amplitude of mixing uniformity caused by in­
creasing mixing elements is reducing, while the
Fig. 9 – Variation of pressure drop and COV with different
number of mixing elements.
correspondingly decreasing amplitude of pressure is not
decreasing. Therefore, considering the pressure loss and
(4)
is a wise choice.
Fig. 10 shows the mole fraction contours of hydrogen with
different mixing elements at outlet cross-section of static
mixer. After the first mixing element, the stratification of
natural gas and hydrogen is obvious. With the increase of
mixing elements, the mole fraction contours of hydrogen
tend to be more uniform. After passing through the fourth
mixing element, the maximum and minimum mole fraction
of hydrogen at the outlet cross-section of the static mixer are
17.61% and 17.33%, respectively. This deviation is only about
1% compared with the total volume percentage of hydrogen,
which can be considered that hydrogen and natural gas have
been mixed uniformly.
4.2. Effect of the operating conditions
4.2.1. Inlet velocity
Different inlet velocity of hydrogen and natural gas will also
affect the mixing effect. The volume ratio of hydrogen and
natural gas remains constant at 20%, and the inlet pressure
deviation between hydrogen and natural gas is 0.05 MPa.
Fig. 11 illustrates the variation of pressure drop and COV at
the outlet cross-section of the fourth mixing element with
different inlet velocity of hydrogen and natural gas. Both the
pressure loss and COV tend to rising with the increase of gas
inlet velocity at the static mixer inlet. As the inlet velocity
increases, the pressure drop becomes larger after passing
through the same mixing elements, which may be mainly
attributed to the increase of Reynolds number. The increase
of Reynolds number indicates that the gas flow is more
complex and the pressure loss increases accordingly. Ac­
cording to numerous investigations, the pressure drop
caused by mixing element can be expressed by question (5)
(Pust et al., 2006).
KL L
p= u2
ReD D (5)
Where KL is pressure loss coefficient of static mixers. The
relationship between pressure loss and flow velocity can be
obtained by fitting as ∆P = 10.68u2, as shown by the blue
dotted line in Fig. 11.
 Chemical Engineering Research and Design 197 (2023) 738–749 745

Fig. 10 – Hydrogen mole fraction contours with different mixing elements. ( (a) Mixing elements-1; (b) Mixing elements-2; (c)
Mixing elements-3; (d) Mixing elements-4; (e) Mixing elements-5; (f) Mixing elements-6).

performance. The decrease in residence time will lead to an

Fig. 11 – Variation of pressure drop and COV with different
inlet velocity.
When the gas passes through the mixing elements, a
higher flow velocity results in a lower residence time. It is
known that residence time is a significant factor in mixing
increase of COV, indicating a punishment in mixing perfor­
mance. The flow velocity increased by 6 times from 5 m/s to
30 m/s, while the COV increased by about 2 times from 0.87%
to 1.6%, and the growth rate of COV was not obvious relative
to that of the flow velocity. Fig. 12 shows the mixing
streamline of natural gas and hydrogen passing through the
static mixer at 30 m/s. Before passing through the first
mixing element, the hydrogen was concentrated in the cen­
tral region of the tube. When passing through the mixing
elements section, the hydrogen and natural gas continuously
change the flow direction under the effect of cross-bars,
realizing the alternating of left rotation and right rotation,
and cross blending to flow downstream. After four mixing
elements, hydrogen and natural gas basically achieve uni­
form mixing. Considering the relationship between pressure
loss and flow velocity, 10 m/s flow velocity is a wise choice.
4.2.2. Inlet pressure deviation
Fig. 13 presents the effect of different inlet pressure deviation
of natural gas and hydrogen on COV and pressure loss. The
inlet velocity of static mixer is 10 m/s with a constant

Fig. 12 – Streamline of natural gas and hydrogen in static mixer at 30 m/s.

746 Chemical Engineering Research and Design 197 (2023) 738–749
Fig. 13 – Variation of pressure drop and COV with different
inlet pressure deviation.
hydrogen volume fraction of 20%, and the inlet pressure of
natural gas is 1.0 × 105 Pa. As the increase of inlet pressure
difference, COV increases firstly and then decreases. This
may be mainly due to the variation of pressure deviation,
which leads to different position distribution and radial in­
jection distance of hydrogen from the injection hole in the
inlet section. As the pressure difference increases, due to the
elbow effect of the hydrogen intake pipeline, more hydrogen
flows from the lower injection hole of the injection pipeline,
which is negative to gas mixing. However, the radial injection
distance of hydrogen will increase accordingly, improving
the mixing uniformity. Under the combined action of these
two factors, COV rises to a maximum of about 2% when the
pressure deviation is about 4.0 × 105 Pa. The pressure curve
showed a continuous downward trend, indicating increasing
flow losses. Over the whole range of hydrogen inlet pressure
variation, the inlet pressure deviation increases about 12
times, the maximum increase of COV is about 1%, and the
maximum pressure reduction is about 100 Pa, accounting for
0.1% of the total inlet pressure. Therefore, the effect of inlet
pressure deviation between natural gas and hydrogen on the
mixing performance can be ignored. Fig. 14 plots the
streamline in static mixer with inlet pressure deviation of
6 × 105 Pa. With the increase of hydrogen inlet pressure, the
hydrogen concentration distribution in cross section of the
tube before mixing elements did not change, and the hy­
drogen is mainly concentrated in the central region of the
tube. The mixing behavior of hydrogen and natural gas still
mainly depends on the cross-bars constantly changing the
flow direction. Increasing the inlet pressure deviation has
little effect on better mixing effect.
Fig. 14 – Streamline of natural gas and hydrogen in static mixer with inlet pressure deviation of 6 × 105 Pa.
Fig. 15 – Variation of pressure drop and COV with different
hydrogen blending volume fraction.
4.3. Effect of hydrogen blending volume fraction
In order to explore the mixing characteristics of different
hydrogen and natural gas blending volume fraction, a com­
parative analysis of mixing behavior has been implemented
with different hydrogen volume fractions within 0–30%. The
inlet flow velocity of natural gas is constant at 10 m/s, and six
different mixture combinations of hydrogen and natural gas
volume fractions are specified according to the interval of 5%
hydrogen volume fraction. Fig. 15 plots the variation of flow
pressure loss and COV with different mixture volume frac­
tions of hydrogen and natural gas. The pressure loss during
mixing shows a rising trend as hydrogen volume fraction
increases, while the coefficient of variation decreased. When
the hydrogen blending volume fraction varies from 5% to
30%, the maximum variation of flow pressure drop is about
80 Pa, accounting for less than 10% of the pressure loss in the
whole hydrogen mixing process. The slight increase of
pressure drop may be attributed to the radial mixing loss of
hydrogen and natural gas. With the increase of hydrogen
volume fraction, more hydrogen will be radially injected into
mainstream natural gas in the inlet section of the static
mixer. Since the density of natural gas is about 8 times that
of hydrogen gas under the same working conditions, the
hydrogen gas injection momentum is small, and the pressure
drop is only slightly increased. Compared with the variation
of pressure drop, the variation of COV is more significant.
COV decreased from 2.3% to 0.47% as the hydrogen blending
volume fraction increased from 5% to 30%. The decrease of
COV indicates that the mixed gas tends to be more uniform.
The COV curve shows that the mixing process of hydrogen
 Chemical Engineering Research and Design 197 (2023) 738–749
Fig. 16 – Streamline of natural gas and hydrogen in static mixer with different hydrogen blending volume fraction ( (a) 10%
H2-90%CH4, (b) 20%H2-80%CH4, (c) 30%H2-70%CH4).
and natural gas becomes more uniform as the volume frac­
tion of hydrogen increases. Based on the static mixer and its
study conditions, (the inlet flow rate of natural gas is 10 m/s,
and the inlet pressure of natural gas and hydrogen is 1 ×105
Pa and 1.5 ×105 Pa, respectively), considering the mixing
uniformity and the pressure drop, relatively superior mixing
performance can be obtained when the volume fraction of
hydrogen is within 15∼20%.
Fig. 16 shows the streamline of natural gas and hydrogen
in static mixer with different hydrogen blending volume. The
mixing flow characteristics are analyzed under conditions
where hydrogen volume fraction is 10%, 20% and 30%, named
as (a), (b) and (c), respectively. When the mixed gas flows into
the first mixing element after passing through the inlet sec­
tion, the streamline becomes more divergent with the in­
crease of hydrogen concentration, indicating that the mixing
uniformity is positively correlated with the volume fraction
of hydrogen, as shown by the black dotted line in the figure.
Then, the mixed gas flows downstream through the second,
third and fourth mixing elements, the gas mixing behavior
under the three conditions mainly depends on the flow di­
rection variation by the mixing elements, and the effect of
the mixing elements is basically the same. Therefore, in
general, mixing uniformity improves with the increase of
hydrogen volume fraction.
5. Conclusion
In this paper, the mixing behavior of hydrogen and natural
gas in SMX static mixer is studied. Based on RANS method
747
and evaluation parameters of mixing performance, the in­
fluences of factors such as the number of mixing elements,
gas flow velocity, inlet pressure deviation and hydrogen
blending volume fraction on hydrogen-natural gas mixing
performance are discussed in detail. Further, under the op­
erating condition of low pressure (< 2 MPa), the hydrogen
volume fraction no more than 20% and gas flow velocity of
about 10 m/s, a compromise design scheme of hydrogen-
natural gas static mixer is proposed between pressure drop
and mixing uniformity, providing some useful conclusions
for subsequent industrial operation.
(1) The pressure drop of the mixed gas through the SMX
static mixer increases linearly, while the decrease of COV
gradually decreases, indicating that the mixing efficiency
is gradually declining. Considering the pressure loss and
mixing uniformity, four mixing elements is a compro­
mise choice.
(2) Both the pressure loss and COV tend to rising with the in­
crease of gas inlet velocity of the static mixer, and the in­
crease of COV is not significant compared with that of
pressure drop. The mixing behavior of hydrogen and nat­
ural gas mainly depends on the mixing elements con­
stantly changing the flow direction, realizing the
alternating of left rotation and right rotation, and the cross
mixing flowing downstream. Considering the relationship
between pressure loss and flow velocity, the velocity of
10 m/s is a better choice. In terms of inlet pressure devia­
tion, the effect of inlet pressure deviation between natural
gas and hydrogen on mixing performance can be negligible.
748 Chemical Engineering Research and Design 197 (2023) 738–749
(3) The pressure drop during mixing shows a rising trend as
hydrogen volume fraction increases, while the coefficient
of variation decreased. The COV curve indicates that the
mixing process of hydrogen and natural gas becomes
more uniform as the volume fraction of hydrogen in­
creases. Compared with the decrease of COV, the pres­
sure drop is only slightly increased.
It should be noted that the mixing element structure para­
meters of SMX static mixer and their mixing performance
compared to other types of static mixers are not discussed in
detail in this paper. Therefore, in the subsequent research, the
comparative analysis between SMX static mixer and other
types of static mixer as well as the optimization design method
of SMX static mixer will be discussed.
Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of
this study are available from the corresponding author upon
reasonable request.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing fi­
nancial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This work has been carried out with the supports of the
Major Science and Technology Project of Inner Mongolia
Autonomous Region of China (No. 2021ZD0025) and the
Foundation Key Laboratory of Automotive Safety and Energy
of Tsinghua University of China (No. KFY2230). The authors
would like to thank them for funding it and their permission
to publish the paper, as well as Okay Energy Technology
(Tianjin) Co., Ltd. for the experimental support.
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