Competitive adsorption and optimization of bimolecular fluidized bed reactor /

Abstract

A numerical study has been performed in order to evaluate the performance of a fluidized bed reactor under the competitive effects of adsorption rate. For this purpose, a steady state model is coupled with a detailed dynamic model. The model is employed to investigate the effect of various operating conditions and rate constants on the efficiency of a fluidized bed reactor. Two reactants are fed to the reactor along with an inert gas to maintain fluidization in the bed. The reactants adsorb reversibly to the catalyst surface and react to form the product which desorbs irreversibly. The reaction kinetics consist of the reaction rate, adsorption and desorption rate constants, and reactant and inert flow rates. Each kinetic variable has a specific range of operation at which studies can be performed at steady state for all combinations of these variables. For each combination of the kinetic variables there exists an optimum product output. For the system studied, conditions were specified which optimize the conversion to the reaction product when the reactor is operated under steady state conditions. Further, it is shown that improvements can be made to this conversion by employing a sinusoidal feed rate of one or both reactants to the reactor.