Numerical investigation of the catalyst granule shapes influence on dehydrogenation reaction

Abstract

In the work, by means of numerical modeling, the influence of the size and shape of the catalyst granules in the fixed-bed reactor for the dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene to styrene on its efficiency is studied. ANSYS Fluent 19.0 software was used to solve a written system of equations. Many component properties parameters are taken from the database of the used software. The granular layer is based on the discrete element method (DEM). The granules are in the shape of a circle, trefoil, and quatrefoil and have a size of 3 mm in diameter. The length of the studied granules is 3 mm, 6 mm and 9 mm. The effect of the granule size and their shape on the concentration of product yield in a wide range of gas velocities is compared. Variants of the catalyst granules shape that provide the highest values of the reaction product output are determined. The output concentration of the product is estimated for industrial reactors and laboratory plants.