M Farsi - Chemical & Petroleum Engineering School, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
A Jahanmiri - Chemical & Petroleum Engineering School, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
R Eslamlueyan - Chemical & Petroleum Engineering School, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran

Dimethyl Ether (DME) as a clean fuel is produced in an adiabatic fixed-bed reactor by the methanol dehydration, in industrial scale. Dynamic modeling of an industrial catalytic fixed bed reactor for DME synthesis has been subject of current study. In this study, DME reactor is modeled heterogeneously with consideration of the heat and mass transfer between catalyst pellets and reactant gas. In order to estimate the DME production and dynamic temperature profile, the reactor model which is a set of partial and ordinary differential equations and algebraic equations has been solved numerically. Steady state results of model have been compared with industrial data. The comparison successfully confirms validity and accuracy of proposed model.

DME, Fixed bed reactor, Heterogeneous model, Dynamic simulation