Favorable trade-off between heat transfer and pressure drop in 3D printed baffled logpile catalyst structures

Additive manufacturing has the potential to unlock a large degree of geometric freedom in the shaping of catalytic material, thereby providing new possibilities to optimize catalyst holdup, pressure drop and heat and mass transfer characteristics. In this modelling study, baffled logpile structures are proposed as a promising candidate to exploit this potential, by shaping the catalytic material as a static mixer, generating cross-flow. An OpenFOAM Computational Fluid Dynamics study was performed on various 2D structure designs to map the trade-off between heat transfer, pressure drop and residence time distribution as a function of the design, length and gap spacing of the baffle. It is observed that structures with the longest baffles provide optimal heat transfer performance, and that the baffle gap spacing can be used to tailor the trade-off between heat transfer and pressure drop. In comparison to a packed bed filled with spherical particles, the novel structures offer a heat transfer rate four to six times as high at the same pressure drop. Whilst full 3D simulations, validated by experiments, remain to complete the analysis, the current work illustrates the potential of this novel class of structured catalyst materials for intensified chemical reactors.& COPY; 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Institution of Chemical Engineers. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creative