CFD Simulation of Dimethyl Ether Synthesis from Methanol in an Adiabatic Fixed-bed Reactor

A computational fluid dynamic (CFD) study of methanol (MeOH) to dimethyl ether (DME) processin an adiabatic fixed-bed reactor is presented. One of the methods of industrial DME production isthe catalytic dehydration of MeOH. Kinetic model was derived based on Bercic rate. The parametersof this equation for a specific catalyst were tuned by solving a one-dimensional homogenous modelusing MATLAB optimization module. A two-dimensional CFD simulation of the reaction isdemonstrated and considered as numerical experiments. A sensitivity analysis was run in order tofind the effect of temperature, pressure, and WHSV on the reactor performance. Good agreementwas achieved between bench experimental data and the model. The results show that the maximumconversion of reaction (about 85.03%) is obtained at WHSV=10 h-1 and T=563.15 K, whereas theinlet temperature has a greater effect on methanol conversion. Moreover, the effect of water in inletfeed on methanol conversion is quantitatively studied. It was concluded that the results obtainedfrom CFD analysis give precise guidelines for further studies on the optimization of reactorperformance.

Keywords:

CFD , DME , Methanol Dehydration , Adiabatic , Fixed-bed Reactor