A numerical performance study of a fixed-bed reactor for methanol synthesis by CO2 hydrogenation

Synthetic fuels are needed to replace their fossil counterparts for clean transport. Presently, production is still inefficient and costly. To enhance the process of methanol from CO2 H2 reduce its cost, a particle-resolved numerical simulation tool presented. A global surface reaction model based on Langmuir-Hinshelwood-Hougen-Watson kinetics utilized. The approach first validated against standard benchmark problems non-reacting reacting cases. Next, method applied study performance in 2D fixed-bed reactor under range parameters. It found that yield enhances with pressure, catalyst loading, reactant ratio, packing density. diminishes temperature at adiabatic conditions, while it shows non-monotonic change studied isothermal Overall, staggered random configurations outperform in-line system.