Mathematical modeling of autothermal light paraffins hydrogenolysis processes

The work is dedicated to modeling of autothermal reactors based on the novel Ni-containing glass-fiber catalysts (GFCs) for hydrogenolysis of gas condensate components to light transportable gaseous products, first of all, methane. Process evaluation was made using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach based on developed kinetic model for propane hydrogenation. Modelling of the fixed bed reactors with Ni/GFC bed has showed that a multi-pass design with internal walls that form several passes in the reactor allows to achieve complete conversion of propane at inlet temperature of ∼300 °C, while it is not observed at all in the conventional one-pass reactor even at 400 °C. Simulation of the reverse-flow process demonstrated that it may provide the full autothermicity of the light paraffin hydrogenolysis, meaning that the inlet gas may be fed to the reverse-flow reactor without any preheating, e.g. with ambient temperature, with full conversion of propane under technologically acceptable duration of cycles between flow reversals (up to ∼860 s). Ni/GFC in the proposed reactors design look promising from practical point of view, potentially allowing to improve process conversion and energy efficiency, to decrease operational and capital costs and to minimize the size of the hydrogenolysis units.