3D CFD modeling of acetone hydrogenation in fixed bed reactor with spherical particles

Acetone hydrogenation in a fixed bed reactor packed with spherical catalyst particles was simulated to study the effects of inlet gas velocity and particle diameter on hydrogenation reaction. Computational results show that the catalyst particles in the reactor are almost isothermal, and the high isopropanol concentration appears at the lee of the particles. With the increase of inlet velocity, the outlet isopropanol mole fraction decreases, and the total pressure drop increases drastically. Small diameter catalyst particles are favorable for acetone hydrogenation, but result in large pressure drop.

A structured packed-bed reactor designed for exothermic hydrogenation of acetone

Fixed-bed reactors randomly packed with catalysts have many disadvantages that may adversely affect the desired chemical reaction.The increasingly used monolithic reactor,in contrast,has many operational advantages;however,for a kinetically-controlled reaction,it does not contain sufficient catalyst to sustain the reaction.To address the problems associated with both randomly packed-bed reactor and the monolithic reactor,a structured packed-bed reactor was proposed and mathematical models were built for randomly packed-bed reactor and structured packed-bed reactor.Their respective performances were compared when applied to the exothermic reaction of the isopropanol-acetone-hydrogen chemical heat pump system.The results showed that the structured packed-bed reactor performed better in terms of pressure drop and heat transfer capacity,and had a lower radial temperature gradient,indicating that this reactor had a higher effective heat conductivity.Isopropanol on the catalyst particle surfaces was more concentrated near the tube wall because a wall effect existed in the boundary layer around the particle-wall contact points.