Effective Radial Thermal Conductivity of a Parallel Channel Corrugated Metal Structured Adsorbent

The effective radial thermal conductivity (keff) of a 2-D analog of a 3-D, parallel channel, corrugated metal, structured adsorbent bed was studied using COMSOL Multiphysics. This 2-D structure consisted of alternating sections of corrugated and flat metal foil sheets, with keff predicted in 1-D perpendicular to the flat metal foil sheet, i.e., the radial direction in a 3-D cylindrical bed. The effect of the thickness of zeolite coating, thickness of metal, type of metal, type of contact between the metal foil sheets (i.e., metal-to-metal, coating-to-coating and metal-to-coating point contacts, and metal-to-metal imbedded contacts), air gap size between the corrugated and flat metal foil sheets, coating on just one or both sides of the metal foil sheets, alignment of the corrugation between sections, and type of stagnant gas medium on keff was studied. In all cases, temperature contour plots revealed the minute region around the point contacts, being mostly stagnant gas medium, manifested a significant re...