Effectiveness factor of two-dimensional ring-shaped catalyst pellets

Abstract

The use of hollow catalytic support improves the utilization of the catalytic material because of the absence of the pellet core, and moreover ensures low reactor pressure drop owing to enhanced bed voidage. In this study, the expressions for the efficient computation of the effectiveness factor are derived for a ring-shaped catalyst pellet undergoing first-order irreversible reaction. The methodology consists of using solutions of one-dimensional problems to remove non-homogeneous boundary conditions. The expressions obtained exhibit significantly faster convergence behavior than those reported in literature. The shape parameters, namely, the height-to-diameter ratio and the inner-to-outer radii ratio, significantly affect the catalyst utilization, such that several-fold improvement in the effectiveness factor is achievable.

Keywords

• hollow catalyst pellet
• effectiveness factor
• thiele modulus
• convergence behavior
• analytical solution