Transient operation

System integration involves numerous miscellaneous development activities, such as control software to address system start-up, shut-down and transient operation, and thermal sub-systems to accomplish heat recovei y, heat rejection and water recoveiy within the constraints of weight, size, capital and operating costs, reliability, and so on. Depending on the application, there will be additional key issues automotive applications, for example, demand robustness to vibrations, impact, and cold temperatures, since if the water freezes it will halt fuel cell operation. 

All processes may be classified as batch, continuous, or semibatch depending on how materials are transferred into and out of the system. Also, the process operation may be characterized as unsteady state (i.e., transient) or steady state, depending on whether the process variables (e.g., pressure, temperature, compositions, flowrate, etc.) are changing with time or not, respectively. In a batch process, the entire feed material (i.e., charge) is added instantaneously to the system marking the beginning of the process, and all the contents of the system including the products are removed at a later time, at the end of the process. In a continuous process, the materials enter and leave the system as continuous streams, but not necessarily at the same rate. In a semibalch process, the feed may be added at once but the products removed continuously, or vice versa. It is evident that batch and semibatch processes are inherently unsteady state, whereas continuous processes may be operated in a steady or unsteady-state mode. Start-up and shut-down procedures of a steady continuous production process are examples of transient operation. 

In the major catalytic processes of the petroleum and chemical industries, continuous and steady state conditions are the rule where the temperature, pressure, composition, and flow rate of the feed streams do not vary significantly. Transient operations occur during the start-up of a unit, usually occupying a small fraction of the time of a cycle from start-up to shut-down for maintenance or catalyst regeneration. 

Poehlein and Dougherty 2) provide more details on transient operation problems and some potential control options. Considerable work is currently being conducted in a number of university... 

It is desirable to "decouple" the system so that each manipulated variable appears to affect only one of the output variables. This requires a matrix upstream of the process which, in response to a change in only one of its input signals, will manipulate all the actual process inputs simultaneously so that only the desired output signal changes. If decoupling is to be accomplished only at steady state conditions this matrix is a set of constants. However, if decoupling is required during transient operation the matrix must contain dynamic transfer functions, some of which may not be physically realizable. 

Vocabulary of Terms Used in Reactor Design. There are several terms that will be used extensively throughout the remainder of this text that deserve definition or comment. The concepts involved include steady-state and transient operation, heterogeneous and homogeneous reaction systems, adiabatic and isothermal operation, mean residence time, contacting and holding time, and space time and space velocity. Each of these concepts will be discussed in turn. 

Equation 10.1.1 represents a very general formulation of the first law of thermodynamics, which can be readily reduced to a variety of simple forms for specific applications under either steady-state or transient operating conditions. For steady-state applications the time derivative of the system energy is zero. This condition is that of greatest interest in the design of continuous flow reactors. Thus, at steady state,... 

Hegedus, L. L. Infrared spectroscopic reactor system to study the transient operation of heterogeneous catalysts. 

Condensation is generally a transient operation in which, as discussed by Ueda and Takashima(106), simultaneous heat and mass transfer are further complicated by the effects of spontaneous condensation in the bulk gaseous phase. After the creation of supersaturation in the vapour phase, nucleation normally occurs which may be homogeneous in special circumstances, but more usually heterogeneous. This process is followed by both crystal growth and agglomeration which lead to the formation of the final crystal product. As a rate process, the condensation of solids from vapours is less well understood than vaporisation(98). Strickland-Constable(107) has described a simple laboratory technique... 

R. Bomp, J. Davey, F. Garzon, D. Wood, and K. More. REM fuel cell durability with transportation transient operation. ECS Transactions 3 (2006) 879-886. 

As with the other reactor configurations, vaporizers, heat exchangers, and a heat source are also needed for microreactors.Unless the hydrogen is 99.999% pure, the PEM fuel cell typically will utilize 70—80% of the diluted hydrogen fed to it. The unreacted hydrogen from the fuel cell anode, augmented with additional fuel as needed, can be used as fuel for the combustor. The use of anode off-gas requires special controls for transient operating conditions for example, a mechanism is needed to... 

This equation holds for adsorption, ion exchange as well as for catalytic systems, which are in a transient operating condition, e.g. during severe catalyst deactivation. For a steady state catalytic fixed-bed operation, eq. (3.287) becomes... 

Values of effectiveness factors in washcoat layers with non-uniform thickness around the channel perimeter have been studied by Hayes et al. (2005). However, the applicability of (even the generalized) effectiveness factor approach is quite limited in complex systems with competing reactions, surface deposition of reaction components, non-linear rate laws and under transient operating conditions (e.g. periodically operated NSRC). Typically, the effectiveness factor method can be used for more accurate prediction of CO, H2 and HC oxidation light-off and conversions in DOC. 

This represents the typical feed mixture to SCR converters when no oxidation precatalyst is applied, as for instance in the case of NOx abatement from stationary sources. With such a feed mixture the main deNOx reaction occurring over V-based catalysts is the so-called standard SCR (R6 in Table V). Transient experiments in a wide range of temperatures (50-550°Q were performed in order to develop a suitable kinetic model of the NH3-N0/02 reacting system. The study of the standard SCR kinetics was particularly focused on the characteristics that are critical for mobile applications, namely the behavior during transient operation and the reactivity in the low temperature region. 

To study the influence of N02 on SCR efficiency, ESC and ETC test cycles with 0% and 50% N02/NOx ratio in front of SCR catalyst were simulated. However, during transient test cycle operating conditions, a constant supply of optimum 50% N02/NOx ratio will be difficult to achieve. NO to N02 conversion over a DOC is dependent on exhaust temperature, space velocity and exhaust composition. Because of transient operating conditions, it becomes furthermore a function of time. Exploiting the fast SCR reaction is thus limited by the realistically achievable N02/NOx ratio in front of the SCR catalyst. To investigate this, ESC and ETC test cycles were also simulated for a combined system of DOC and SCR, where the N02/NOx ratio in front of the SCR is defined by the N02 conversion over the DOC (Fig. 52). 

Transient operating conditions and their dependency of time. 

Recent kinetic studies indicate that carbon corrosion can be significant under normal transient operation.56,57,60-62 The rate of voltage change, common in the automotive application, enhances cathode carbon-support corrosion.16 Hence, further model improvement shall be focused on finding the carbon corrosion kinetics associated with voltage cycling. Currently, the relationship between fuel cell performance decay and accumulated carbon-support loss is only empirical.22 More effort has to be made to incorporate mechanisms that can accurately quantify voltage decay with carbon-support loss.31,32... 

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