MODEL-BASED QUALITY, EXERGY AND ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF FLUIDIZED BED MEMBRANE REACTORS

Abstract

Naphtha reforming units are of great interest for hydrogen and reformate production in petroleum refineries. Conventionally employed packed bed reactors for naphtha reforming have drawbacks such as a high pressure drop, diffusion limitations in catalyst, and radial and axial gradients of temperature and concentration. A fluidized bed reactor (FBR) attends to some of the draw backs of packed bed reactor. Coupled with the advantages of fluidization, the incorporation of membrane can improve the yield of products by selectively removing hydrogen from the reaction side. In this work, a sequential modular simulation (SMS) approach was used to simulate hydrodynamics of a fluidized-bed membrane reactor (FBMR) for catalytic reforming of naphtha in Aspen Plus environment. Aspen Plus is used for flowsheet development of the FBMR. The hydrodynamic parameters and membrane permeation phenomena were implemented using an interfacing of Excel with the Aspen Plus model of the FBMR. A fluidized-bed reactor without membrane, i.e., FBR, is also simulated and a comparison is drawn. FBMR outperformed the FBR in terms of increase in aromatics in reformate stream and effective separation of hydrogen during the reaction. The proposed method can be readily adopted by process engineers for design and optimization decisions. Keywords: Naphtha catalytic reforming; Aspen Plus; Excel interfacing; Two-phase theory of fluidization; Hydrogen production; Fluidized-bed membrane reactor; Increase in aromatic production; Pd–Ag membrane.