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

摘要

The oxidative dehydrogenation (ODH) of butene has been recently developed as a viablealternative for the synthesis of 1,3-butadiene due to its advantages over other conventional methods.Various catalytic reactors for this process have been previously studied, albeit with a focus onlab-scale design. In this study, a multi-tubular reactor model for the butadiene synthesis via ODH ofbutene was developed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). For this, the 3D multi-tubularmodel, which combines complex reaction kinetics with a shell-side coolant fluid over a series ofindividual reactor tubes, was generated using OpenFOAM ? . Then the developed model wasvalidated and analyzed with the experimental results, which gave a maximum error of 7.5%. Finally,parametric studies were conducted to evaluate the effect of thermodynamic conditions (isothermal,non-isothermal and adiabatic), feed temperature, and gas velocity on reactor performance. The resultsshowed the formation of a hotspot at the reactor exit, which necessitates an efficient temperaturecontrolatthatsectionofthereactor. Itwasalsofoundthatasthetemperatureincreased, theconversionand yield increased whilst the selectivity decreased. The converse was found for increasing velocities.