Spatial distribution of functionalities in an adsorptive reactor at the particle level

The concept of adsorptive reactors has attracted considerable attention as a hybrid process to enhance reaction selectivity and conversion for heterogeneously catalysed gas phase reactions. Transport resistances affect the performance of adsorptive reactors adversely and the integration of functionalities within the same particle circumvents this limitation. Instead of a simple uniform integration of functionalities within the particle, one can also non-uniformly distribute the functionalities over the particle to exploit the concentration profiles arising from transport limitations for process enhancement. A detailed numerical investigation has been carried out to identify the optimal distribution of catalyst and adsorbent functionalities at a particle and reactor level using Aspen Custom Modeler. Though process enhancements are possible by non-uniform distribution within particle, the benefits are marginal. Nevertheless, the integration of functionalities within a particle offers significant improvements in adsorptive process performance.