Transient analysis of exothermic reactions within catalyst pellets. Effect of initial conditions

✍ Scribed by M.S. Bidner; A. Calvelo

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1974
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 710 KB
• Volume: 29
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0009-2509
• DOI: 10.1016/0009-2509(74)80123-5

✦ Synopsis

The transient behavior of exothermic, irreversible, first-order catalytic reaction inside a spherical, porous pellet is analyzed using mixed type boundary conditions to represent extetial resistances. Calculations are performed for Lewis number, pC,DJeh,, equal to unity and a pellet initially at uniform temperature and devoid of reactant, which is considered realistic. Phenomena occurring during the evolution of transients in the region of steady external transport limitation are described.

In ranges where more than one steady state exists, the effect of the initial conditions on the attainment of the different steady states is analyzed. The results include information about transient behavior when the initial condition is at the boundary between stable domains of attraction. For certain ranges of parameters it is shown that the initial conditions studied may fall outside of the domain of attraction of one of the stable steady states, demonstrating that information about domains of attraction as well as steady states should be taken into account when designing catalytic systems.