(309c) Steady-State Multiplicity, Stability and Pattern Formation in Autothermal Reactors for Catalytic Partial Oxidations

A noted contribution of Professor Mike Harold in the area of catalytic reaction engineering is on the topic of multiple steady-states (MSS) and reactor stability. These topics were considered to be of “academic interest only” during the 80s when he investigated catalytic partial oxidation of hydrocarbons in his thesis work. Most current textbooks (and courses) in reaction engineering do not cover the topics of “thermos-kinetic” and “thermo-flow” multiplicities in any depth. The main purpose of this talk is to show that an understanding of these concepts is absolutely essential in the design and scale-up of autothermal reactors for high temperature catalytic partial oxidations (CPO) such as Oxidative Coupling of Methane (OCM) and Oxidative dehydrogenation of ethane (ODHE). These are used as examples to illustrate how the MSS, stability/transient behavior and pattern formation concepts determine the scale-up, transient behavior and economic viability of the OCM/ODHE processes.