Open loop thermal control of exothermal chemical reactions in multifunctional heat exchangers

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental study which demonstrates the potentiality of multifunctional heat exchangers (MHE) to carry out exothermal chemical reactions by the local control of the reactive environment temperature. Two highly exothermal chemical reactions with different kinetics (instantaneous and fast) have been investigated. The MHE is found to be very efficient in extracting the heat released by the chemical reactions. Due to its large heat transfer capacity, this process allows to increase considerably inlet reactant concentrations without thermal runaway and thus to enhance both chemical reaction conversion ratio and yield. This study also shows the limitations of the multifunctional heat exchanger for exothermal and instantaneous chemical reactions.

Flow structure and heat transfer induced by embedded vorticity

“…Some aspects of the HEV-heat exchanger are not yet fully developed, such as its macro and micro mixing properties. Future experimental work will aim to characterize its potential as a reactor for fast chemical reactions, so that it can qualify as a multifunctional heat exchanger [30][31][32]. Also the knowledge of the heat and momentum transfer mechanisms in similar situations such as wall bounded flows should help the understanding transfer phenomena in HEV [33][34][35].…”

Heat exchanger/reactors (HEX reactors): Concepts, technologies: State-of-the-art

“…The aim of thermal intensification is to reduce this distance by supplying or removing the heat almost as rapidly as it is absorbed or generated by the reaction [10], i.e. combining the reaction and heat transfer into a single piece of equipment: using for instance a heat exchanger as a chemical reactor, the so-called HEX reactor.…”

“…In other works, Ferrouillat et al [10] studied the influence of offset strip fins in the case of two exothermic chemical reactions. The reactor is composed of three independent and superimposed channels with rectangular cross-sections.…”

Spatial optimization of an underhood cooling module – Towards an innovative control approach

“…The current trend is to reduce their volume and weight while maintaining sufficient thermal efficiencies. Several control and design approaches have been proposed to optimize HX thermal performance [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. However, many of these studies focus on the design and geometry and on the fluid flow structure; little work has been dedicated to optimizing HXs by taking into account their interaction with their environment.…”