A modelling approach to kinetics study and novel monolith channel design for selective catalytic reduction (SCR) applications

Abstract

A systematic modelling approach was scrutinized to develop a kinetic model and design a novel monolith channel geometry for selective catalytic reduction (SCR) applications. An equation-oriented modelling tool, gPROMS® ProcessBuilder®, was employed to build the kinetic model for a commercial SCR catalyst by extracting intrinsic kinetic parameters from the experimental data collected in a conventional fixed-bed reactor in which resistances to mass and heat transfer were expected to be an influence. All catalytic chemical reactions and relevant transport phenomena were simultaneously considered for the kinetic model development. The kinetic model and parameters estimated were then summarized in a form of a user-defined function that would be utilized in a commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) package, ANSYS® Fluent®, to search for a novel SCR monolith channel geometry. An elongated hexagonal channel was found to have better performance in terms of NO conversion and pressure drop, in comparison with a conventional square channel.