Sharif Digital Repository

The 3A zeolites are excellent adsorbents for industrial-scale gas dehydration because of the low energy required for regeneration and ease of operation. A computational study of the dehydration of an industrial feed stream containing ethane and water was performed using an in-house code that included an appropriate equilibrium adsorption isotherm. The validated computational model was used to examine the impact of particle size on the process dynamics and the corresponding pressure drop. The water concentration along the adsorption column was also investigated. To increase the process capacity, the packed adsorption bed was divided into two distinct layers, which were operated with different... 

Utilization of nanoparticles in oil and gas industry has attracted considerable attention of engineers and researchers. In this article, the feasibility of nanoemulsion flooding is investigated as a method for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) through coreflooding experiments, using a packed bed and real reservoir fluids. Nine different mixtures of the solvent, surfactant, and nanoparticles in the form of a nanoemulsion phase are generated and used to recover the oil in the context of an EOR process. Various tests are conducted to determine the properties of porous medium and fluids. To study the production performance of this EOR technique, pressure drop across the packed bed are measured, along... 

Thanks to a wide range of pore sizes by nano/macro composites of SiOC/Al2O3, such composites can serve as different layers of the structure of Packed Bed Reactor Membranes (PBRM). In the present study, the Polymer-Derived Ceramics method (PDC) has been used to synthesize nano/macro structures. Firstly, the effect of toluene as an extra carbon source on structure and microstructure of SiOC glass-ceramics was evaluated, such that, 4% (Vol) toluene was recognized as the proper amount to facilitate the synthesis of β-SiC at 1300 °C proved by XRD, Raman spectroscopy, and HR-TEM. Moreover, the presence of micro/meso-porosities was assessed by BET and TEM, indicating the capability of SiOC to serve... 

In this paper the effect of the sulphate concentration on the performance of a three-stage anaerobic baffled packed-bed reactor (ABPR) was investigated. Synthetic wastewater (3000 mg COD/l) was used as the sole organic substrate. The 30 liters fixed-bed bioreactor filled with plastic packing and divided in three equal sections was used as the mABPR reactor. The unit was run at a hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 1 day and at temperature of 25° C. The results of this study showed that when COD/SO42- ratios were changed from 30 to 3 with increasing sulphate concentration from 100 to 1000 mg/l, COD removal slightly was decreased. Maximum COD and sulphate removal were 91 and 96%, respectively,... 

The oxidation of ferrous iron (Fe2+) in solution using Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans has industrial applications exclusively in the regeneration of ferric iron (Fe3+) as an oxidizing agent for the removal of hydrogen sulfide from waste gases, desulfurization of coal, leaching of non-ferrous metallic sulfides and treatment of acid mine drainage. The aim of this investigation was to increase the bio-oxidation rate of ferrous sulfate by using immobilized cells. Rate of Fe2+ oxidation was determined in a packed-bed bioreactor configuration with monolithic particles being used as support material. Biooxidation of ferrous iron by immobilized cells was investigated in repeated batch culture and... 

In this paper, the performance of immobilized packed bed glucose isomerase enzyme was mathematically modeled. A modified Michaelis-Menten type relation was used to describe the enzyme kinetics. Mass transfer inside the biocatalyst particle and through the bed column was analyzed simultaneously. Using measured data, physicochemical properties including diffusivity, viscosity and density of sugar solutions were correlated with its concentrations and were used to provide precision in solving the set of model equations. Model equations were solved using the Runge-Kutta and Gauss-Seidel algorithms and finite difference numerical method in MATLAB environment. Model output was used to demonstrate... 

The kinetics and equilibrium of isomerization reaction of D-glucose to D-fructose have been investigated using a commercial immobilized glucose isomer ase (IGI), Sweetzyme type IT®, in a batch stirred-tank reactor. The batch experimental data were used to model the reaction kinetics using the well-known Michaelis-Menten rate expression. The kinetic model was utilized in a dynamic-mathematical model for a packed-bed reactor to predict the concentration profiles of D-glucose and D-fructose within the reactor. The experimental results for the fractional conversion of D-glucose in the packed-bed reactor of IGI catalyst indicated that the model prediction of the transient and steady-state... 

Results are presented from a numerical study examining the flow of a viscous, incompressible fluid through a random packing of non-overlapping spheres at moderate Reynolds numbers, spanning a wide range of flow conditions for porous media. By using a laminar model including inertial terms and assuming rough walls, numerical solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations in three-dimensional porous packed beds resulted in dimensionless pressure drops in excellent agreement with those reported in a previous study. This observation suggests that no transition to turbulence could occur in the range of the Reynolds number studied. For flows in the Forchheimer regime, numerical results are presented of... 

The biological oxidation of ferrous ion by iron-oxidizing bacteria is potentially a useful industrial process for removal of H2S from industrial gases, desulphurization of coal, removal of sulfur dioxide from flue gas, treatment of acid mine drainage and regeneration of an oxidant agent in hydrometallurgical leaching operations. The main purpose of this study was to find optimum values of the process parameters on the ferrous biooxidation rate by immobilization of a native Sulfobacillus species on the surface of low density polyethylene (LDPE) particles in a packed-bed bioreactor using Taguchi method. Five control factors, including temperature, initial pH of feed solution, dilution rate,... 

A mathematical model is presented to simulate the multiple heterogeneous reactions with complex set of physicochemical and thermal phenomena in a moving bed of porous pellets. This model is based on both heat and mass transfer phenomena of gaseous species in a porous medium including chemical reactions at interfaces whose areas vary during the conversion. This model accounts for both the exothermic and endothermic reactions which can be equimolar or nonequimolar. Furthermore it considers simultaneously the reactions in the nonisothermal transient condition. A powerful technique based upon finite volume fully implicit approach has been implemented to solve the complicated governing equations... 

The oxidation of ferrous iron in solution using Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans has industrial applications in the regeneration of ferric iron as an oxidant agent for the removal of hydrogen sulfide from waste gases, desulphurization of coal, leaching of non-ferrous metallic sulfides and treatment of acid mine drainage. The aim of this attempt was to increase the biooxidation rate of ferrous sulfate by using immobilized cells. Rate of ferrous iron oxidation was determined in a packed-bed reactor configuration with low density polyethylene (LDPE) particles as support material in order to find the most practical system for scale-up. The present work studies the influence of basic parameters on... 

We develop a method for predicting the moisture content of the fermenting solids in an intermittently mixed packed-bed bioreactor on the basis of measurements of the inlet and outlet gas stream temperatures and the assumption that both the gas streams are saturated with water vapor. This method can be used to estimate when an intermittently mixed packed bed should be mixed and how much water should be added during the mixing event. The predictions were experimentally verified for the growth of Aspergillus niger on wheat bran in a thin packed bed. We show that the application of a controller based on our estimation method would have led to adequate moisture control, with significant errors in... 

The aim of this work is to investigate flow hydrodynamics in porous media. Random non-overlapping spherical particles in a cylindrical geometry were produced as a porous media. Navier-Stokes equations in three-dimensional porous packed bed have been solved and dimensionless pressure drop has been studied for a fluid flow through the porous media at different Reynolds numbers (based on pore permeability and interstitial fluid velocity). The numerical results are in good agreement with those reported by Macdonald (1979) in the range of Reynolds numbers studied. At higher Reynolds numbers turbulent models such as large eddy simulation (LES) and Reynolds stress model (RSM) also have been... 

Numerical study of flow through random packing of non-overlapping spheres in a cylindrical geometry is investigated. Dimensionless pressure drop has been studied for a fluid through the porous media at moderate Reynolds numbers (based on pore permeability and interstitial fluid velocity), and numerical solution of Navier-Stokes equations in three dimensional porous packed bed illustrated in excellent agreement with those reported by Macdonald [1979] in the range of Reynolds number studied. The results compare to the previous work (Soleymani et al., 2002) show more accurate conclusion because the problem of channeling in a duct geometry. By injection of solute into the system, the... 

Kinetic data relevant to steam methane reforming (SMR) are often applied to catalysts and conditions for which they have not been derived. In this work, kinetic rates for the two SMR and water gas shift reactions were derived for 12 commonly used reforming catalysts based on conversion data obtained from the literature. Subsequently, these rates were tested in dynamic operation, steady-state, and equilibrium using a 1-D reactor model developed in-house with gPROMS model builder. Modelling outputs were further validated independently at equilibrium using the software chemical equilibrium with applications (CEA), and the literature. The effect of variables such as temperature, pressure, steam... 

A 1-D heterogeneous model of sorption-enhanced steam methane reforming (SE-SMR) process in a packed bed reactor consisting of nickel catalyst well mixed with CO2 sorbent particles is investigated for three types of common sorbents. The performance of SE-SMR process is studied under low medium pressure conditions (3 – 11 bar) to find the optimum operating conditions. Optimal CaO sorption corresponding to 82% CH4 conversion and 85% H2 purity is found at 900 K, 3 bar, 3.5 kgm−2s−1 and S/C of 3.0. In contrast, lithium zirconate (LZC) and hydrotalcite (HTC) sorbents exhibited best sorptions under the operating conditions of 773 K, 5 bar and S/C of 3 with CH4 conversion of 91.3% and 55.2%, and H2... 

A mathematical model has been developed to simulate heterogeneous reactions with a complex set of physicochemical and thermal phenomena in a packed bed. These include the chemical reaction itself, the transport of gaseous species in the pores, the generation or consumption of heat by the reactions, and the transport of heat in the porous domain. Solution of complicated sets of governing equations is based upon the concept of a finite volume fully implicit approach. The model has then been applied to analyze the reduction of a hematite pellet in a moving packed bed reactor. © 2005 Elsevier Ltd