A comparative study of a direct discretization and an operator-splitting solver for population balance systems

•A direct discretization and a operator-splitting scheme are compared.•The uni-variate population balance systems model the synthesis of urea.•If the steady state is of interest then the splitting scheme is recommended.•The direct discretization simulates the evolution of the process more accurately.•The efficiency of both solvers is similar.

A direct discretization approach and an operator-splitting scheme are applied for the numerical simulation of a population balance system which models the synthesis of urea with a uni-variate population. The problem is formulated in axisymmetric form and the setup is chosen such that a steady state is reached. Both solvers are assessed with respect to the accuracy of the results, where experimental data are used for comparison, and the efficiency of the simulations. Depending on the goal of simulations, to track the evolution of the process accurately or to reach the steady state fast, recommendations for the choice of the solver are given.