Tubular reactor design for the oxidative dehydrogenation of butene using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling

3-D Multi-Tubular Reactor Model Development for the Oxidative Dehydrogenation of Butene to 1,3-Butadiene

“…With the development of kinetic models, efforts have been made to design optimal reactors for the ODH reaction [25]. Several types of reactors have been proposed for this reaction and the adiabatic fixed-bed reactor is known for its simplest design and good product yield and selectivity [26].…”

“…The adiabatic operation is important in terms of commercialization because of its conventional usage [18]. However, such systems cannot control the temperature inside the reactor, resulting in more side products [25]. On the other hand, in a fluidized reactor, the uniform particle mixing is achieved and can maintain the temperature and product uniformly across the reactor.…”

“…A multi-tubular reactor, which is commonly used for several industrial processes, has shown good temperature control for highly exothermic reactions by removing heat using a shell side coolant. The coolant either flows co-currently or counter-currently to achieve the isothermal condition in the reactor because it is essential to avoid rapid temperature increase to maintain the product yield and selectivity [25]. Xingan et al [16] compared the three above-mentioned reactors on a laboratory and pilot-scale for the ODH of butene to butadiene and indicated that the multi-tubular reactor showed the highest efficiency.…”

“…Particularly in the modeling of reaction systems for reactor design, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a well-established tool for predicting the accurate fluid patterns and understanding the transport phenomena and its influences on reactions in chemical engineering. It has also shown great advantages in evaluating and validating the performance of reactors before their actual fabrication and scale up to a pilot plant [25,28]. Therefore, many models have been built for the design and optimization of various types and configurations of reactors using CFD.…”

“…Additionally, Fattahi et al [32] examined a variety of parameters affecting the performance of a multi-tubular system for the ODH of ethane. Furthermore, in the previous work of Mendoza et al [25], an isothermal multi-tubular fixed-bed reactor was developed for ODH reaction; however, it was found that there were a few limitations. Considering that the model was reduced to a single tubular reactor for simplification, the description of the model such as the flow pattern of the shell-side coolant and the actual transfer phenomena in the reactor could not be represented sufficiently.…”