Octane Boosting in a Membrane Assisted Radial Flow Naphtha Reactor, Using DE Optimization Technique

摘要

The significant impact of catalytic naphtha reactors on the total benefits from the refinerycomplexes has been road toward a continuous evolution and significant advances in naphthareactors and its operational conditions. Regarding this, the present study proposes a tubularmembrane reactor with the radial-flow patterns of the sweeping gas and the naphtha feed namedRF-TMR as a novel configuration instead of a conventional axial-flow tubular packed bednaphtha reforming process. The cross section area of the reactor is divided into somesubsections. The walls of the gaps are coated by a Pd-Ag membrane layer to increase thehydrogen permeation rate. The membrane layer enhances pure hydrogen while boosts the octanenumber of reformates by increasing the aromatic production. The DE optimization technique isutilized here to find proper operational and dimensional parameters. Operating pressures(reaction and permeation sides), catalyst mass distribution in each reactor, total number ofsubsections, the ratio of length to diameter (LOD) for each reactor and the proper ratio of sweepto catalytic side angles are considered as the most important decision variables. The results showsuccessful aromatic production in addition an increase about 27 kmol/hr in the hydrogenproduction rate compared with the conventional naphtha reactor. The idea is capable to apply and revamp the fixed and moving bed radial-flow naphtha reactors. Mathematical modeling andalso optimization technique should be apply for such a new ideas before commercialization andmaking decision for set up of a new pilot plants.