Spatially
resolved 3D-CFD simulation of a packed bed membrane reactor for steam reforming
Nico
Jurtz1, Thomas
Eppinger2, Matthias Kraume1
1Chair Chemical and Process
Engineering, TU Berlin, Berlin, Germany;
2CD-adapco, Nuremberg, Germany;
Abstract
Due to the progressing climate change and crude
oil depletion a shift to renewable resources is needed. Hydrogen and syngas are
important feedstocks in the chemical and process industry and are used in a
variety of processes like methanol synthesis, the Haber-Bosch process or the Fischer-Tropsch
synthesis.
One route for syngas generation is the
catalytic steam reforming of methane or biogas in packed bed reactors (PBR).
Recent studies show the potential of process intensification by hydrogen
removal with semi-permeable membranes. Packed bed catalytic membrane reactors show
an increased methane conversion compared to PBR’s (Chibane, 2011).
For a reliable but coast efficient design of
that reactor type Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is a valuable tool. Although
due to the low tube-to-particle diameter ratio local wall effects play an
important role recent numerical studies only used pseudo-homogenous approaches
often combined with the assumption of a constant transmembrane species flux.
The current work will overcome that
simplifications and show how spatially resolved 3D-CFD simulations help to
improve the reactor design by including all relevant phenomena like fluid flow
through the complex bed topology, heat transfer, catalytic chemical surface
reaction and a locally resolved transmembrane species flux.
For the packed bed the DEM-CFD coupled method
by (Eppinger, 2011) is used. The transmembrane flux is modelled using an
approach presented at the AIChE Annual Meeting 2015 (Jurtz, 2015) that uses a
conformal interface to calculate the local membrane flux.
References
Chibane, L., Djellouli, B.,
2011. Methane Steam Reforming Reaction Behavior in a
Packed Bed Membrane Reactor.
IJCEA, Vol. 2, No. 3, 147-155.
Eppinger, T., Seidler, K.,
Kraume, M., 2011. DEM-CFD simulations of fixed bed
reac-tors with small tube to particle diameter ratios. Chem. Eng. J. 166, 324-331.
Jurtz, N., Eppinger, T.,
Aglave, R., 2015. A CFD Study on the Impact of
Convective Flow Characteristics and Species Distribution on the Performance of
Full-Scale Membrane Reactors.
AIChE Annual Meeting, Salt Lake City
