Pyrolysis reactor design calculations

This example illustrates how to apply the QSSA to a flow reactor. We are interested in determining the effluent concentration from the reactor and in demonstrating the use of the QSSA to simplify the design calculations. Ethane pyrolysis to produce ethylene and hydrogen also generates methane as an unwanted reaction product. The overall stoichiometry for the process is not a simple balance of ethane and the products. The following mechanism and their kinetics have been proposed for ethane pyrolysis 22]... 

The design of the pyrolysis reactor was such to convert all of the organic material, either suspended or dissolved, in a 50- t1 wastewater sample, to volatile organic compounds that would then be measured as a single peak by the FID. A standard mixture of glucose and glutamic acid was pyrolyzed to calibrate the unit. By entering the BOD value of the standard mixture into the final calculation, the results obtained by Py-FID could be directly compared with the BOD values for the same samples. 

The pyrolysis reaction is strongly endothermic so that one of the main problems in designing the reactor is to provide for sufficiently high rates of heat transfer. The volume calculated above would be made up of a series of tubes, probably in the range 50-150 mm diameter, arranged in a furnace similar to that in Fig. 1.5c. (For further details of ethylene plants see Miller ".)... 

Specific yield was calculated as CNM obtained weight-to-catalyst weight ratio. The reactor with the vibrofluidized catalyst layer was considered as one of the versions for constructive pyrolysis design. Catalyst layer was placed to reactor body - cylindrical heating shell, and was converted into vibrofluidized condition, and gas was given through distribution device. 

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