Adsorptive Reactor Architecture: Conceptual foundations for functionality integration
Final Report Abstract
The deliberate manipulation of concentration and temperature profiles through the incorporation of adsorptive phenomena provides a powerful tool for enhancing reactor performance. Amongst the several degrees of freedom available in design and operation of adsorptive reactors, such as macrostructuring, temperature profiling, distributed feed of reactants, dynamic profiling of operating parameters, distributed feed, and microstructuring of adsorbent and catalyst pellets, the spatial distribution of the adsorptive and catalytic functionalities at the reactor level (macrostructuring) as well as the temperature profiling over the reactor length have been shown to be decisive factors for maximizing adsorptive reactor performance. Considering the industrially-relevant Claus and Deacon reactions as test cases, two novel designs have been proposed, the multilevel isothermal and the central isothermal sandwich designs, by which a substantial performance improvement compared to the corresponding isothermal and adiabatic simple uniform structure adsorptive reactor designs could be attained even with incorporating the regeneration process necessary. The overall feasibility of these novel designs can be envisaged in the light of the considerable costs reduction, which compensate for the extra costs required for the proposed designs, achieved by simplified downstream processing. At the experimental level, two important issues should be taken into account for Claus reaction. On one hand, the sulphur condensation within the bench-scale plant can be avoided by applying temperature control system at the pipes by means of heating bands. The gaseous sulphur can then be released into the neutralisation tank to react there with the NaOH. On the other hand, the material used for the adsorbers or reactors, should be stainless steel, which is resistant to H2S and SO2, in place of glass to avoid possible tightness problems of the used joints. In contrast, to study the adsorptive Deacon reactor experimentally, one should first develop an appropriate adsorbent with favourably high adsorptive capacity and high resistance to the highly corrosive conditions prevailed.
Publications
- (2015) Structural and Operational Optimality of Adsortive Reactors, ESCRE 2015 - European Symposium on Chemical Reaction Engineering, Fürstenfeldbruck, Germany
M. Hussainy, D.W. Agar
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1002/ceat.201600197) - (2016) Multiscale Heat Integration Study of Periodically Operated Adsorptive Reactors, Jahrestreffen Reaktionstechnik, Würzburg, 02.-04.05.2016
M. Hussainy, D. W. Agar
- (2016) Structural and Operational Optimality of Adsortive Reactors, Chemical Engineering and Technology
M. Hussainy, D. W. Agar
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1002/ceat.201600197) - (2017) Modeling and Optimization of the Cyclic Steady State Operation of Adsorptive Reactors, CAMURE10&ISMR9, Qingdao-China, July 2017
M. Hussainy and D.W. Agar
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cjche.2018.04.013) - (2017) Multi-Dimensional and Multi-Scale Modeling and Optimization of the Functionality Distribution in Adsorptive Reactors, CAMURE10&ISMR9, Qingdao-China, July 2017
M. Hussainy, C. Pouwels, and D.W. Agar
- (2017) Temporal Profiling Strategies for Enhanced Performance of Adsorptive Reactors, CAMURE10&ISMR9, Qingdao-China, July 2017
M. Hussainy, O. Scholl, and D.W. Agar
- (2018) Modeling and Optimization of the Cyclic Steady State Operation of Adsorptive Reactors, Chinese Journal of Chemical Engineering
M. Hussainy and D.W. Agar
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cjche.2018.04.013)
