Study of the effect of operating parameters on Ammonia Synthesis Reactor performance

In this work modeling and simulation of a horizontal ammonia synthesis reactor with two quench flows is presented. The one dimensional heterogeneous mathematical model consists of two point boundary value differential equations for the catalyst pellets are used in the simulations. The differential equations of boundary and initial value problems are solved by fourth order Runge-Kutta method. Simulation results are compared with some industrial data with a good agreement. Then effect of parameters like inlet temperature, total feed flow rate, and operating pressure on ammonia production are studied. Moreover, the total mass flow rate of feed that gives maximum molar flow rate of ammonia is obtained. Finally, a relation between converter pressure and the best inlet temperature that gives the maximum outlet conversion is proposed.

Keywords:

Mathematical modeling , Ammonia synthesis , Horizontal reactor