Computer aided design of pellets for fixed-bed reactors performing Michaelis-Menten reactions

The problem of designing the pellet characteristics for existing fixed-bed reactors has been studied. The reactor is assumed to be a unidimensional, plug-flow, heterogeneous type. Three particle shapes, two intraparticle mass transfer mechanisms, two kinds of film resistance to mass transfer and two poisoning patterns have been considered. An economic balance to both product market price and pellet market cost was taken into account. An interactive program (HIMER) containing all these contributions was thus developed, enabling the investigator to follow the reactor performance along the flow coordinate.