A Qualitative Numerical Study on Catalytic Hydrogenation of Nitrobenzene in Gas-Liquid Taylor Flow with Detailed Reaction Mechanism

Abstract

While the number of computational studies considering two-phase flows in microfluidic systems with or without mass transfer is increasing, numerical studies incorporating chemical reactions are still rare. This study aims to simulate the catalytic hydrogenation of nitrobenzene in gas-liquid Taylor flow by combining interface-resolving numerical simulations of two-phase flow and mass transfer by a volume-of-fluid method with detailed modeling of the heterogeneous chemical reaction by software package DETCHEMTM. Practically relevant physical properties are utilized for hydrodynamic and mass transfer simulations in combination with a preliminary reaction mechanism based on density functional theory. Simulations of mass transfer are conducted using a predetermined velocity field and Taylor bubble shape. At the beginning of the simulation when liquid nitrobenzene is not saturated by hydrogen, axial profiles of surface species concentrations and reaction rates show local variations. As hydrogen dissolves in nitrobenzene, the concentration profiles of surface species at the wall become uniform, eventually reaching an equilibrium state. Neglecting the local variation in a short initial period will allow further simplification of modeling surface reactions within a Taylor flow.

Keywords

• microreactor
• segmented flow
• gas-liquid mass transfer
• heterogeneous reaction
• flow chemistry