Análise da eficiência de um reator tubular (PFR) submetido a diferentes modos de alimentação

Abstract

Plug flow reactors are widely used in the chemical industry. Feed modifications are an alternative that can generate increase in the reaction rate due to the formation of mixture zones inside the reactor. The present work proposes an analysis of the influence of the feeding of tubular reactors through computational fluid dynamics (CFD) techniques. The simulations of the geometries and modes of operation for the proposed study were performed without commercial software ANSYS CFX 14.0 and compared to the simulation of a standard reactor geometry operating under a permanent flow in order to observe the effects generated by the proposed modifications. The proposed reactor design, fed in an oblique current and through a reflux loop, is able to create a turbulent zone inside the reactor, besides generating a zone of low pressure, causing a reflux current without a need of a specific pump for this purpose.