Verification of Heat and Mass Transfer Closures in Industrial Scale Packed Bed Reactor Simulations

Arpit Singhal, Schalk Cloete, Rosa Quinta-Ferreira and Shahriar Amini
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Arpit Singhal: Department of Energy and Process Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway
Schalk Cloete: SINTEF Materials and Chemistry, Flow Technology Department, S. P. Andersens veg 15 B, NO-7031 Trondheim, Norway
Rosa Quinta-Ferreira: Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Coimbra, Rua Sílvio Lima, Polo II, 3030-790 Coimbra, Portugal
Shahriar Amini: Department of Energy and Process Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway

Energies, 2018, vol. 11, issue 4, 1-22

Abstract: Particle-resolved direct numerical simulation (PR-DNS) is known to provide an accurate detailed insight into the local flow phenomena in static particle arrays. Most PR-DNS studies in literature do not account for reactions taking place inside the porous particles. In this study, PR-DNS is performed for catalytic reactions inside the particles using the multifluid approach where all heat and mass transfer phenomena are directly resolved both inside and outside the particles. These simulation results are then used to verify existing 1D model closures from literature over a number of different reaction parameters including different reaction orders, multiple reactions and reactants, interacting reactions, and reactions involving gas volume generation/consumption inside the particle. Results clearly showed that several modifications to existing 1D model closures are required to reproduce PR-DNS results. The resulting enhanced 1D model was then used to accurately simulate steam methane reforming, which includes all of the aforementioned reaction complexities. The effect of multiple reactants was found to be the most influential in this case.

Keywords: catalysis; packed bed reactors; steam methane reforming; direct numerical simulation (DNS); multiscale modelling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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