Heat and mass transfer limitations in Monolith reactor simulation with non uniform washcoat thickness

Abstract

In this contribution, effectiveness factor (n) calculations are performed by a perturbation and matching technique developed by the authors which takes into account both the intrinsic kinetic expression and external heat and mass transfer resistances. The simplified method of Papadias et al. (2000) was used to consider the non-uniform washcoat thickness usually present in monolith channels. As a result a global effectiveness factor (n0) is calculated at each point on the grid to simulate monolith reactor performance. The procedure was tested to predict experimental findings taking into account the actual kinetic expression to describe CO oxidation on Pt catalyst. Agreement among theoretical predictions and Ullah et al. (1992) and Holmgren and Andersson (1998) experimental results are fairly good.