A mathematical model for the dehydrogenation of methylcyclohexane in a packed bed reactor

Abstract

A model for the dehydrogenation of methylcyclohexane in a tubular reactor over an industrial catalyst Pt‐Sn/Al2O3 has been established. This model takes into account the axial dispersion at the inlet of the catalytic bed reactor as well as the heat transfer at the wall of the reactor. The heat transfer at the wall is satisfactorily represented by using a heat transfer coefficient correlation for which the parameters are obtained by fitting to the experimental data. The model provides a good representation of the radial and axial temperature profiles in the packed bed and can be also used to calculate the conversion.

Design and simulation of a novel reactor for the H2 storage mechanism in methylcyclohexane

“…The kinetics of Sinfelt et al [14] was used and the model was able to fit the experimental temperatures (along the length of the reactor) as well as the final conversions. Also, working on a fixed bed reactor, Touzani et al [15] developed a mathematical model based on a two-dimensional pseudo-homogeneous model, but with axial dispersion at the inlet. The kinetics developed over Pt-Sn/Al 2 O 3 by Touzani et al [16] was integrated and the model was developed for the reactor with constant wall temperature.…”

“…The results were compared with the experimental findings and a correlation for the wall heat transfer coefficient was presented. In the same group of Touzani et al [15], while realizing the high endothermicity of the dehydrogenation reaction, Klvana et al [17] proposed a design in which the dehydrogenation reactor was directly coupled with an internal combustion engine. The heat produced by the engine which was otherwise taken up by cooling water was used to heat the reactor bed.…”

“…An experimental reactor system consisting of 10 reactor tubes was used and five experimental data points were employed to compare the experimental results. The modeling equations similar to Touzani et al [15] were employed, but the kinetics of Chaouki et al [18] for the modified Pt-Sn/Al 2 O 3 catalyst of Touzani et al [15] were used in the simulation. In another study, Chaouki and Klvana [19] developed a mathematical model for an experimental tubular fixed bed reactor containing Pt-Sn/Al 2 O 3 .…”

Equivalent annular model of a multitubular shell‐side (MSS) fixed‐bed reactor

“…Therefore, it is our purpose to study how radial variations of the flow rate and of the transport properties affect the behavior of a reactor. Previous studies of radial temperature gradients in reactors, whether with plug flow or nonplug flow, have dealt with singletube fixed-bed reactors (Ahmed and Fahien, 1980;Touzani et al, 1987), whereas modeling of a multitubular shell-side (MSS) fixed-bed reactor has been restricted to the assumption of plug flow (Hlavacek and Votruba, 1977).…”