Predicting Reactants’ Hydrodynamic Behavior Inside Non-Porous Catalytic Reactors

Gaseous reactants usually have complex behaviors ranging from unsteady flow patterns to oscillations due to the differences in various physical and chemical properties. Such behaviors hinder the complete understanding coupled between transport processes and chemical kinetics. Systems within which chemical reactions are coupled with diffusion and convective transport have chemical engineering applications. The aim of the present work is to simulate the steady state behavior of a reaction-diffusion-convection system using the finite element method for ammonia decomposition. The overall model used consists of the flow and mass transport modules which are described by the continuity, Stokes equations and the convective dispersion equation respectively. Concentration profile, velocity and pressure fields presented are for a first order reaction for ammonia decomposition inside tubular non-porous catalytic reactors. Two different types of reactors are considered, the first one represents a fuel cell and the second is for a catalytic wall reactor.