Catalytic conversion modeling of methanol in dehydration reactor using Voronoi 3D pore network model

Abstract

Dimethyl ether as a clean fuel has been attracted in the recent decade. It can be produced in the catalytic reaction of methanol dehydration. Modeling and simulation of the fixed-bed reactor for this process is desired to predict the reactor performance. A Voronoi 3-dimensional pore network model for the reactor is used to study the effect of pore space on the reactor performance. Considering the morphological structure of the pore space is one of the advantages of this model. In this study, pore network modeling was used to consider mass and heat transfer both in the reactor and catalyst scales. The effectiveness factor results for the catalyst scale are used for the reactor simulations and the effect of methanol temperature and concentration on reactor performance is studied. The results indicated that the reduction of flow rate increases reactants residence time in the reactor and consequently increases the amount of conversion. The inlet methanol concentration had a significant influence on the conversion and the methanol concentration in the middle of the reactor increased from 22 to 34 mol/m3 when its purity decreased from 99 to 97%.