Development and validation of diffusion based CFD model for modelling of hydrogen and carbon monoxide recombination in passive autocatalytic recombiner

Abstract

In water-cooled power reactor, hydrogen is generated in case of steam zirconium reaction during severe accident condition and later on in addition to hydrogen; CO is also generated during molten corium concrete interaction after reactor pressure vessel failure. Passive Autocatalytic Recombiners (PARs) are provided in the containment for hydrogen management. The performance of the PARs in presence of hydrogen and carbon monoxide along with air has been evaluated. Depending on the conditions, CO may either react with oxygen to form carbon dioxide (CO2) or act as catalyst poison, reducing the catalyst activity and hence the hydrogen conversion efficiency. CFD analysis has been carried out to determine the effect of CO on catalyst plate temperature for 2 & 4% v/v H2 and 1–4% v/v CO with air at the recombiner inlet for a reported experiment. The results of CFD simulations have been compared with the reported experimental data for the model validation. The reaction at the recombiner plate is modelled based on diffusion theory. The developed CFD model has been used to predict the maximum catalyst temperature and outlet species concentration for different inlet velocity and temperatures of the mixture gas. The obtained results were used to fit a correlation for obtaining removal rate of carbon monoxide inside PAR as a function of inlet velocity and concentrations.