Development of CFD Based Mathematical Models to Study Heterocatalytic Systems

Abstract

Nowadays mathematical models are applied in almost every field of our life to predict how real systems behave. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has become a standard tool for analyzing various situations where fluid flow has a significant effect on the studied processes. Complex models can be implemented and solved in commercial CFD packages (e.g. COMSOL Multiphysics). The goal of this paper is to model a catalytic bed based on the model of individual catalyst pellets. The proposed model takes into account the mass, heat and momentum transport as well as the reactions in a catalytic pellet of an industrial fixed-bed tube reactor. Different ways for aggregating pellet models were compared and evaluated applying COMSOL Multiphysics. The catalytic pellet model was exported using MATLAB-COMSOL connection, and the catalytic bed model was implemented and tested using MATLAB.