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Investigation of a fixed‐bed pilot plant reactor by dynamic experimentation. Part 2. Simulation of reactor behaviour
Author(s) -
Baiker Alfons,
Bergougnan Michel
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
the canadian journal of chemical engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.404
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1939-019X
pISSN - 0008-4034
DOI - 10.1002/cjce.5450630123
Subject(s) - methylcyclohexane , experimental data , pilot plant , adiabatic process , isothermal process , reduction (mathematics) , mathematics , mechanics , thermodynamics , statistics , chemistry , toluene , physics , geometry , organic chemistry
Data collected with forced uncorrelated sinusoidal changes of the process variables are used to simulate the behaviour of a non‐isothermal non‐adiabatic pilot plant fixed‐bed reactor. The test reaction applied is the hydrogenation of toluene to methylcyclohexane on an industrial nickel catalyst. A pseudo‐homogeneous two‐dimensional model as well as a one‐dimensional model are applied to describe the reactor behaviour. The model parameters are estimated by defining an objective function based upon residuals of the discretized differential equations instead of upon deviation from the observed variables. This procedure leads to a drastic reduction of computer expenditure. Measured and simulated temperature and concentration profiles are compared on the basis of a number of plots and fitting quality criteria. The model parameters estimated from data collected during dynamic runs are comparable to those obtained from a series of stationary experiments (2 3 experimental design). However, with the dynamic experiments the data necessary for modelling can be collected much more efficiently.