Numerical Investigation of non-homogeneity and specific area in porous media on packed bed reactor performance by Lattice Boltzmann Method

In current research, surface reaction phenomena in several packed bed reactors have been considered. Flow field through several fractal Sierpinski carpet porous media have been simulated by LBM. The endothermic Isopropanol dehydrogenization reaction has been considered as basic reaction mechanism and two major parameters of non-homogeneity and specific area in catalytic surface reaction have been investigated. To validate our numerical method, the obtained results have been compared to a recent benchmark study and adopted very well. Also, in both cases the porosity factor retained constant (ε=0.79). The results shown that, by three times increase in specific area, the reactant conversion rate is increased significantly (approximately one order of magnitude), and the pressure drop increased (nearly 5 times), too. Also, to consider non-homogeneity arrangement, the particle arrangements from small to large and large to small have been considered. In both, the pressure drop is approximately the same. At low Re, reactant conversion of both arrangement are the same but by increasing of Re, the packed bed reactor with large to small arrangement has a little more reactant conversion.