Abstract
The oxidative dehydrogenation (ODH) of butene has been recently developed as a viable alternative 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 on lab-scale design. In this study, a multi-tubular reactor model for the butadiene synthesis via ODH of butene was developed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). For this, the 3D multi-tubular model, which combines complex reaction kinetics with a shell-side coolant fluid over a series of individual reactor tubes, was generated using OpenFOAM®. Then, the developed model was validated 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 results showed the formation of a hotspot at the reactor exit, which necessitates an efficient temperature control at that section of the reactor. It was also found that as the temperature increased, the conversion and yield increased whilst the selectivity decreased. The converse was found for increasing velocities.
Highlights
Hydrocarbons such as butene and 1,3-butadiene are important building block chemicals [1]
A separation process is required after steam cracking, and butadiene is extracted by an aprotic polar solvent from crude C4 raffinates [5]
Previous studies have been extensively conducted to improve the selectivity and yield of butadiene at mild reaction conditions to enable the oxidative dehydrogenation (ODH) process to compete with steam cracking technology [7]
Summary
Hydrocarbons such as butene and 1,3-butadiene (butadiene) are important building block chemicals [1]. Sterrett and Mcllvried [18] derived semi-empirical kinetic equations for the ODH of butenes to butadiene over a zinc–chromium–ferrite catalyst in a fixed bed reactor, which appears to be an attractive and flexible continuous process for producing butadiene. 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 developed model represents the industrial application of butadiene synthesis to provide insight into the behavior of this process by analyzing the influence of key operating conditions such as flow rates and temperature on the reactor performance, which was not considered in any of the review literature.
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