Reverse-flow reactor operation and catalyst deactivation during high-temperature catalytic partial oxidation

Abstract

Catalytic partial oxidation of methane at high temperature short contact time conditions was studied over three different noble metal catalysts (Pt, Rh, and Ir) in a comparison between steady state (SS) and reverse-flow reactor (RFR) operation. A particular emphasis was put on the interplay between catalyst deactivation and regenerative heat-integration. It was found that RFR operation leads to strong improvements in synthesis gas yields over SS results for all three catalysts, with particularly strong improvements for poorly performing catalysts. Furthermore, while the increased catalyst temperatures result in an accelerated deactivation of the unstable catalysts ( Pt , Ir ) , heat integration leads to a complete compensation of this acceleration. RFR operation thus has an intrinsic “equalizing” effect on catalyst performance and thus offers a widely applicable reactor engineering approach to compensate for poor or degrading catalysts in high temperature partial oxidations.