Model prediction of hot spots formation in shallow adiabatic packed‐bed reactors

Abstract

AbstractTransversal hot zones have been observed in many industrial and laboratory reactors. Yet, previous models which utilized rate expressions that depended only on the temperature and concentration of the limiting reactant failed to predict formation of stable hot zones. We previously proved that pseudohomogeneous models of a uniformly active shallow adiabatic packed‐bed reactor cannot predict a bifurcation to stable hot zones when the transversal heat dispersion is larger than that of the species, and the reaction rate depends only on the temperature and concentration of the limiting reactant. We prove here that the same is true also for a two‐phase model of a uniformly active shallow, adiabatic packed‐bed reactor. It is shown that a shallow reactor model, which uses more detailed kinetic expression, may attain stable, transversal hot zones. © 2005 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2006