Palladium membrane reactor performance for hydrogen recovery from cyclohexane dehydrogenation process: CFD modeling

In this study, the catalytic dehydrogenation of cyclohexane to hydrogen and benzene production was investigated in a tubular Pd-based membrane reactor (MR) in presence of a commercial Pt/Al2O3 catalyst. To this purpose, a 2Daxisymmetric, isothermal model based on computational fluid dynamic (CFD) method is presented to investigate the Pd-based MR performance during cyclohexane dehydrogenation process for benzene and hydrogen production. The proposed CFD model provides the local information of velocity, pressure and component concentration for the driving force analysis. The validation of model results was carried out by experimental data and a good agreement between model results and experimental data was achieved. It was found that the efficient removal of hydrogen in the Pd-based MR could significantly increase the cyclohexane conversion. Moreover, using CFD simulation runs, effects of operating parameters such as reaction temperature and reaction pressure values on the Pd-based MR performance was evaluated in terms of cyclohexane conversion and COx-free hydrogen recovery. It can be concluded that the cyclohexane conversion realized in Pd-based MR is higher than traditional reactor (TR) during cyclohexane dehydrogenation reaction, in all the studied cases.

Keywords:

Membrane reactor , Cyclohexane dehydrogenation , Hydrogen production