Claudia Diehm

Chapter Two - Spatial Resolution of Species and Temperature Profiles in Catalytic Reactors: In Situ Sampling Techniques and CFD Modeling

Spatial resolution of species and temperature profiles can provide valuable information for understanding, design, and optimization of catalytic reactors. The combination of experimental investigation and CFD modeling does not only improve our knowledge but also helps to discover uncertainties and limitations of novel scientific techniques for an adequate interpretation of the observations. Two lab-scale reactor configurations with in situ capillary techniques are investigated experimentally and numerically for the resolution of spatial species and temperature profiles: the stagnation flow on a catalytically coated disc and the flow through a catalytically coated honeycomb monolith, in which CO is totally and CH4 is partially oxidized, respectively, over Rh/Al2O3 catalysts. CFD simulations reveal two significant items for the interpretation of the measured profiles: internal mass transport inside the catalyst in the stagnation flow reactor and the impact of the capillary probe in the honeycomb monolith.