Modelling, simulation and optimization of industrial fixed bed catalytic reactors. Topics in chemical engineering, Volume 7

Abstract

In the last two decades impressive advances have been made toward the understanding and quantitative description of the kinetics, diffusion and overall performance of catalytic reactors. Despite these advances, however, the use of mathematical modeling of gas-solid catalytic reactors in industry is still limited. By consolidating this progress in the understanding of catalytic processes, this book applies these fundamental advances to the development of models for design, simulation and optimization of industrial reactors. With particular attention being paid to the verification of the developed models against industrial data, these models are used to optimize the performance of many practical reactor cases. Using a system approach for the development of the different components and the resulting overall models, the book gives an insight into the behavior of these complex industrial systems. In addition, the practical relevance of bifurcation, instability and chaos to industrial reactors is briefly discussed. This book will be invaluable to all academics, industrial researchers and designers involved with gas-solid catalytic reactors in the petrochemical and petroleum refining industries. Topics include: systems theory and principles for developing mathematical models of industrial fixed bed catalytic reactors; chemisorption and catalysis; intrinsic kinetics of gas-solid catalytic reactions; practical relevance of bifurcation, instabilitymore » and chaos in catalytic reactions; effect of diffusional resistances: the single pellet problem; the overall reactor models; the catalyst deactivation problem; physico-chemical parameters for industrial steam reformers; numerical techniques for the solution of equations arising in the modeling of industrial fixed bed catalytic reactors; application of the collocation method to the catalyst deactivation problem; and maximum principle or the heterogeneous model.« less