A three-dimensional conjugate heat transfer model for methanol synthesis in a modular millireactor

Abstract

In this work, a modular millireactor (MMR) is designed and modeled using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tool OpenFOAM. First, the method is validated against a conventional packed bed reactor (PBR) model (1D) with Aspen Plus. Next, the method is applied to study the effects of pressure (2–6 MPa) and temperature (483–533 K) on the performance of the MMR. Conjugate heat transfer (CHT) CFD results for the MMR are compared against a corresponding PBR at isothermal conditions. For the MMR, the methanol yield is shown to vary between 9–23 % within the studied parameter range. Overall, the MMR outperforms the PBR at conditions studied in this work. The maximum difference in methanol yield between MMR and the PBR is noted to be a factor of 1.71 at 533 K and 5 MPa. Such a large discrepancy advocates the usage of 3D CHT/CFD.