A new reactor concept for the combined production of ammonia and methyl ethyl ketone

Abstract

In this study, simultaneous production of ammonia and methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) in a multi tubular thermally coupled reactor is presented. Based on this new configuration, the released heat from the ammonia synthesis reaction as an extremely exothermic reaction in the inner tube is employed to supply the required heat for the endothermic 2-butanol dehydrogenation reaction in the outer tube. MEK and hydrogen are produced by the dehydrogenation reaction of 2-butanol and the produced hydrogen is used to supply 30.72% of the required hydrogen for the ammonia synthesis. Furthermore, in spite of the conventional ammonia synthesis and 2-butanol dehydrogenation plants, interstage coolers and furnace are not required for the proposed configuration. Therefore, operational costs, energy consumption and furnace emissions like CO, CO2 and NOx are significantly decreased. It should be also stressed that the multi-objective optimization is employed to enhance the performance of the reactor with the aid of maximizing the summation of the production rate and yield for each side of the reactor. Besides, the effect of the main process parameters variation on the reactor performance has been studied.