Computational fluid dynamics in the design of catalytic reactors

Computational fluid dynamics has become an important tool in studying the processes and apparatuses of chemical technology (in particular, the proportion of papers using this method in 2010 was almost 6 % of all publications in chemical engineering publishing «Elsevier Science»). Capabilities of computational fluid dynamics are shown in three examples from different areas of chemical technology: developing a method of tubular reactor loading in natural gas steam reforming, the study of heat transfer in the reactor of vegetable fats hydrogenation at the catalyst replacing, the study of transients in the automotive converter. Verification of the computational fluid dynamics results was performed by comparison with experimental data at developing of loading method in tubular reactor as an example the solution of the catalyst particles deceleration by air flow. The obtained data are compared with the classical results of measurements of aerodynamic drag of the sphere and cylinder are a further development work on the flow past a stream of complex shape particles. The paper presents the results of survey of the fats hydrogenation reactor with the possibility of flow heating and even distribution before applying to the catalyst bed. It is shown that the design of the reactor does not provide the necessary quality of homogeneity of the reaction stream, it’s necessity to modify the heating elements. Effectiveness of computational fluid dynamics to study fast processes with chemical reaction is shown by the example of the study of transients in automotive catalytic converter (the influence of flow hydrodynamic and heat transfer on the thermal regime of the cellular catalyst particles is very difficult to investigate by experimental methods). Application of computational fluid dynamics can significantly reduce timecost to develop and optimize designs of effective catalytic reactors with a fixed, fluidized or moving bed (in particular, multi-phase reactors with stirrers), as well as mixers, adsorbers, bubblers and other apparatuses of chemical technology with moving media.

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