Single palladium membrane tube reactor

First, the basic CFD model for a single palladium membrane tube reactor with the simplest configuration is developed. The model established, which takes account of a lot of information on the physical properties, the chemical kinetics, the membrane properties and so on, will be proved by comparing with the practical reactor performances. 

The single palladium membrane tube reactor used is shown in Fig. 13.1, where the shell tube is stainless-steel with a length of 250 mm and an inside diameter (ID) of 21 nun. A palladium membrane tube was inserted into the centre of the reactor and was covered with a stainless-steel mesh tube to prevent contact with the catalyst pellets, such that the clearance between the membrane tube and stainless-steel mesh was 1.2 mm. The 5 am-thick palladium membrane supported on a porous a-AljOs tube was 100 mm long and 3 mm in outer diameter (OD), and showed almost infinite selectivity to hydrogen that is, the ideal permselectivity for Hj/Nj observed was more than 10 000 (Itoh et al., 2007). 0.5 wt% Pt/AljOj cylindrical pellets (3.2 mm diameter and 3.6 mm height) were packed around... 

Numerical model for the single palladium membrane tube reactor... 

Mimura, K., D. Oka,T. Sato and N. Itoh CFD analysis of a single palladium membrane tube reactor for the dehydrogenation of cyclohexane as a chemical hydrogen carrier ,/ Chem. Eng., /pn.,43,757-766 (2010a). 

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis of membrane reactors simulation of single- and multi-tube palladium membrane reactors for hydrogen recovery... 

Key words CFD model, membrane reactor, palladium membrane, single tube, multi-tube, dehydrogenation, hydrogen. 

Similarly to the single-tube type, a CFD model for analysing and designing a multi-tube type of palladium membrane reactor will be developed, where the three-dimensional mass and heat transfer for the dehydrogenation of cyclohexane occurring in the catalyst-packed bed is taken into account (Mimura et al, 2010b). 

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