(454e) Open Cellular Monoliths for Structured Catalytic Reactors: Modeling and Simulation

Structuring concepts for catalytic reactors have drawn much attention in recent years as a promising option to achieve process intensification in the chemical industries. However, for the case of solid foam monoliths the quantitative understanding of the structural influence of the local foam structure on the flow field and the heat and mass transport (and thus on the reactor performance) is still limited. Hence further research in this direction is needed which is the motivation for our work. In this contribution, we are illustrating recent trends and advances in the field of modeling and simulation of hierarchical structured reactors.

Hierarchically organized structured zeolitic composites can benefit in their applications from both, the zeolitic function (e.g. separation, activity) and the function of the support (e.g. pressure drop reduction, improved mass and heat transport). Open-cellular ceramic foams are very often used as (non-reactive as well as reactive) supports. In our investigations we are focusing on detailed numerical studies of such geometries and the 3D flow field along with mass and heat transport processes in order to analyze the influence of the local foam geometry on the macro transport characteristics. This allows for a more fundamental understanding of the relationship between the support structure, the local flow field, the local and global transport characteristics, and finally the reactor performance.