Development of Pilot-Scale CO2 Methanation Using Pellet-Type Catalysts for CO2 Recycling in Sewage Treatment Plants and Its Validation through Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Modeling

In this study, a pilot-scale reactor was designed and compared using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for a high-efficiency CO2 methanation reaction. The trends of the CO2 methanation catalyst efficiency at a pilot or industrial scale could be lower than those measured at the laboratory scale, owing to the flow of fluid characteristics. Therefore, the CO2 methanation reactor was designed based on the results of the CFD analysis to minimize the above phenomenon. Ni–Ce–Zr was used to manufacture a CO2 methanation catalyst in the form of pellets. The catalyst successfully produced about 43.3 Nm3/d of methane from the reactor. This result shows that CO2 methanation, which is known as an exothermic reaction, was stable at the pilot scale. It is believed that the self-supply of energy will be possible when this CO2 methanation technology is applied to industrial processes generating large amounts of CO2 and H2 from by-product gases.