Packed Bed Reactor
Application ID: 238
One of the most common reactors in the chemical industry, for use in heterogeneous catalytic processes, is the packed bed reactor. This type of reactor is used both in synthesis as well as in effluent treatment and catalytic combustion.
The reactor consists in essence of a container filled with catalyst particles. These particles can be contained within a supporting structure, like tubes or channels, or they can be packed in one single compartment in the reactor.
This application presents an approach for studying coupled macro- and microscale mass balances in reactors packed with catalyst. The model requires two geometries, one for each system scale, to compute the concentration profiles of the reacting species along the packed bed reactor as well as within catalyst pellets.
This model example illustrates applications of this type that would nominally be built using the following products:
however, additional products may be required to completely define and model it. Furthermore, this example may also be defined and modeled using components from the following product combinations:
- COMSOL Multiphysics® and
- either the Battery Design Module, Chemical Reaction Engineering Module, Corrosion Module, Electrochemistry Module, Electrodeposition Module, or Fuel Cell & Electrolyzer Module and
- either the Battery Design Module, CFD Module, Chemical Reaction Engineering Module, Corrosion Module, Electrochemistry Module, Electrodeposition Module, Fuel Cell & Electrolyzer Module, Microfluidics Module, Polymer Flow Module, Porous Media Flow Module, or Subsurface Flow Module
The combination of COMSOL® products required to model your application depends on several factors and may include boundary conditions, material properties, physics interfaces, and part libraries. Particular functionality may be common to several products. To determine the right combination of products for your modeling needs, review the Specification Chart and make use of a free evaluation license. The COMSOL Sales and Support teams are available for answering any questions you may have regarding this.