Oxidation of an ultra-lean mixture of methane and air over a platinum catalyst at the constant temperature of 1000 K is investigated numerically in several microreactor configurations featuring different hydrodynamics. These include a straight microchannel with the catalyst coated on the walls and a few wavy microchannels with continuous and discretised catalytic coating. The surface generated CO₂ is selected as the indicator of catalytic activity and is evaluated along the catalytic surfaces and the outlet of reactor. It is shown that separation and reattachment of the boundary layer significantly alters the catalytic activity by modifying the structure of concentration boundary layer. Comparison of a strategically coated wavy microchannel with a straight microchannel, with accounting for the residence time, yields an increase of up to 400% in the production rate of CO₂. It is argued that the observed hydrodynamic effects upon catalytic activities could help designing highly improved catalytic microreactors.

在几种具有不同流体动力学特性的微反应器配置中，对铂催化剂上甲烷和空气的超稀薄混合物在1000 K的恒定温度下的氧化进行了数值研究。这些包括一个直的微通道，其催化剂涂在壁上；几个波浪形的微通道，具有连续的和离散的催化涂层。表面产生的CO ₂选择作为催化剂活性的指标，并沿催化剂表面和反应器出口对其进行评估。结果表明，通过改变浓度边界层的结构，边界层的分离和重新附着显着改变了催化活性。将具有策略性涂层的波浪形微通道与直形微通道进行比较（考虑到停留时间），可以将CO ₂的生产率提高多达400％。有人认为，观察到的对催化活性的流体动力学效应可能有助于设计高度改进的催化微反应器。