Studies on the Method of Orthogonal Collocation: V. Multiple Steady States in Catalyst Particles

Abstract

Efficient numerical schemes are developed in this paper to solve the boundary value problems of diffusion with chemical reaction in catalyst particles. These schemes are based on the fact the concentration profiles can be divided into reaction and dead zones. The reaction zone can be further divided into two zones at a defined critical point. New transformations are used to minimize the number of collocation points needed to obtain accurate solutions. With the help of the continuation package AUTO, the modified collocation schemes are used to obtain the multiple steady states and the locations of the concentration profiles zones for different values of Thiele modulus.