Modeling the Transient VOC (toluene) Oxidation in a Packed-Bed Catalytic Reactor

A model is developed to study the transient behavior of a non-isothermal, non-adiabatic packed-bed reactor during VOC (toluene) oxidation with air on a mixed-oxide catalyst via Mars-van Krevelen kinetic scheme. The aim is to find a safe reactor design and operating conditions for VOC elimination, which has been collected in a battery of adsorption units from dilute VOC streams. Once each adsorption column is saturated, a non-isothermal desorption takes place, and the gas stream exiting the sequence of VOC desorption columns feeds continuously the catalytic reactor for VOC elimination. The reactor model describes a 2D two-phase system interacting through the gas-solid interphase, including convection and axial and radial dispersions of mass and heat. The simulations show that the gas flow velocity, and reactor and particle diameters, are key parameters to achieve a safe design, and that traveling reaction fronts in the packed-bed exist when a series of reversible step-wise changes are performed in the concentration and temperature at the feed, as a result of the transient balance between heat generation and heat elimination along the packed-bed. When comparing the perturbation in VOC concentration at the feed versus those in temperature, a large parametric sensitivity is observed for the latter case without the presence of multiple steady states. Due to the uncertainty in the values of the effective heat transport parameters, transient responses of different magnitude are observed for the same operating conditions when using heat transport parameter of different magnitude.