A UNIFIED COLLOCATION ALGORITHM FOR PACKED-BED CHEMICAL REACTOR SIMULATION |
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Authors: | LAURA GARDINI ALBERTO SERVIDA MASSIMO MORBIDELLI SERGIO CARRA |
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Affiliation: | 1. Tema S.p.A , VialeAldo Moro 38, Fiera District, Bologna, 40127|Italy;2. Dipartimento di Chimica Fisica Applicata , Politecnico di Milano , P.zza Leonardo da Vinci, 32, Milano, 20144, Italy |
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Abstract: | Mathematical models of packed-bed catalytic reactors are aimed to predict the conversions and temperature profiles in both fluid and solid phases within the reactor. Although very general models can be mathematically formulated, usually several simplifying hypothesis are introduced for the fluid phase and/or the solid phase, in order to overcome computational difficulties We describe in this paper a computational algorithm based on Orthogonal Collocation Method on finite elements, with elimination of the knot unknown functions, coupled with an integration method for stiff ordinary differential equations. This has been used in the development of a computer code, which allows us to find the transient behavior of the reactor by solving the equation relative to the external field, coupled with those describing the transient behavior in the catalyst particles, for a wide class of reactor models. The most general examined model includes axial dispersion in the external fluid phase, interphase mass and heat transfer resistances, intraphase mass resistance and any given kinetic scheme with complex reaction rate expressions. |
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Keywords: | Orthogonal collocation Collocation algorithm Fixed-bed reactors |
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