Optimized tube-wall reactor

A tube-wall reactor, in which the catalyst is coated on the tube wall, is conceptually ideally suited for highly exothermic and equilibrium-limited reactions because the heat generated at the wall can be rapidly taken away by the coolant. Previous work (1) has numerically demonstrated that for highly exothermic selectivity reactions, the optimized tube-wall reactor is superior from both steady state production and dynamic points of view to the fixed-bed reactor. Also, the tube-wall reactor is being advanced as a possible reactor for carrying out methanation in coal gasification plants (2). From a reaction engineering point of view, it therefore seems appropriate to analyze the reactor for the analytically resolvable case of complex first-order isothermal reactions. 

It is our purpose to optimize the performance of a tube-wall reactor with the reaction rate constants as parameters, and also with respect to some other key design parameters. 

Details of a thin-wall Pd-Ag permeator tube. Reprinted from Membranes for Membrane Reactors Preparation, Optimization and Selection, Basile and Gallucci Ed., Ch. 4, S.Tosti, Metallic membranes prepared by cold rolling and diffusion welding, pp. 155-166, Copyright (2011), with permission from Wiley. 

---