Theoretical analysis based on CFD method for evaluation of Pd-Ag Membrane reactor performance in comparison with conventional reactor during dehydrogenation of cyclohexane

In the present study, the performance of the palladium-silver membrane reactor during the cyclohexane dehydrogenation (DCH) reaction is modeled and simulated based on the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method. In recent years, hydrogen production has been important due to its industrial applications and clean energy. Therefore, the dehydrogenation process of cyclohexane has been considered due to the production of crude dioxide and crane monoxide-free hydrogen as well as high hydrogen capacity. For this purpose, a symmetric two-dimensional model is proposed for the palladium membrane reactor. In this regard, after modeling and simulating the performance of the fixed bed reactor and comparing its results with the laboratory data, a good agreement (4% error) was obtained between theoretical and laboratory results. In order to better understand the performance of the membrane reactor during the DCH reaction, the influence of various operating parameters (reaction temperature, reaction pressure, adsorption factor and flow arrangement) on the concepts of cyclohexane conversion percentage and hydrogen recovery percentage have been investigated. As a general result in all operating conditions, the PdC membrane reactor (MRC) showed better performance than the synchronous flow membrane reactor (MR) and conventional fixed bed reactor (TR). For example, the cyclohexane conversion rate increased with increasing temperature from 430 to 490 K, for MRC reactor from 28.4 to 100%, MR reactor from 10.1 to 77.75 and TR reactor from 7.42 to 46.29.