Model Analysis of the Role of Kinetics, Adsorption Capacity, and Heat and Mass Transfer Effects in Sorption Enhanced Dimethyl Ether Synthesis

Abstract

The role of kinetics, adsorption capacity, and heat and mass transfer effects in the sorption enhanced dimethyl ether synthesis (SEDMES) is investigated by means of a 2D+1D model of a single tube of an industrial-scale, externally cooled, multitubular reactor that simulates the reaction/adsorption step of the SEDMES cycle. The effect of the adsorbent/catalyst weight ratio is analyzed, showing that a trade-off between DME productivity and yield originates from the balance of kinetics and adsorption capacity in the reactor tube. The effects of internal diffusion in catalyst particles are shown to have a strong impact on effective reaction rates: significant yield/productivity improvements are obtained when using a mechanical mixture of catalysts with small particle diameters or by rearranging the distribution of the two active phases in hybrid or core@shell pellets. The thermal effects in the reactor, which are increasingly critical upon intensifying the SEDMES process conditions, are also addressed.

Mechanistic and multiscale aspects of thermo-catalytic CO2conversion to C1products

“…10.c) are another breakthrough technology, allowing thermodynamic limitations to be overcome by the use of an adsorbent material that removes water from the reaction environment, and have applications either in methanol production or in higher alcohols production. 469,470 The adsorption of water simulating a complete process proved to increase the methanol productivity by 15% under practically relevant operating conditions. 471 Recently, sorption enhanced methanol production from CO 2 hydrogenation has provided outlet methanol concentrations up to 290% of the one without the sorption enhancement effect at 60 bar.…”

Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis of Mercury Adsorption by Inverse-Vulcanized Porous Sulfur Copolymers

“…There is a correlation between the volumetric flow rate and the particle size of materials . Materials with different particle sizes and porosity present good adsorption capacities at different volumetric flow rates depending upon the offered resistance inside the pore of the particles due to diffusion …”

Recent Progress in Direct DME Synthesis and Potential of Bifunctional Catalysts

“…Model‐based optimization studies on the composition of the dual catalyst bed revealed that an optimized distribution with an increased amount of methanol catalyst enhances the catalytic performance, allowing a significant shift towards the equilibrium CO resp. CO 2 conversion 156, 158, 159.…”

“…Model-based optimization studies on the composition of the dual catalyst bed revealed that an optimized distribution with an increased amount of methanol catalyst enhances the catalytic performance, allowing a significant shift towards the equilibrium CO resp. CO 2 conversion [156,158,159]. Different modeling approaches have been used to model the direct DME synthesis, the coupling of methanol formation models [106,107,110] and its dehydration [160,161] is one of the first approaches used, however, in the last years, lumped kinetic models based on prior knowledge on the direct CO/CO 2 conversion to DME are being developed [157,158,162].…”