341b Modeling Coupled Reactive Flow and Evaporation within a Multistage Reactor

Hua Bai1, Debashis Chakraborty1, Daniel Trauth1, Genong Li2, and Aseem Jain2. (1) The Dow Chemical Company, 2301 Brazosport Blvd. B1225, Freeport, TX 77541, (2) Fluent Inc., 10 Cavendish Court, Lebanon, NH 03766

Multi-stage reactors are routinely used in chemical plants. Traditionally, the design and scale-up of these reactors rely heavily on empirical correlations or expensive experiments. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has been widely accepted as an effective replacement or complementary tool to the conventional methods in reactors' design. Although CFD has become a routine tool in the chemical industry, when complicated physics are coupled, numeircal modeling is still very challenging. In this study, a numerical simulation of a two-stage acid reactor is presentated. Liquid acid spray and droplets' evaporation, complex chemical reactions among evaporated species and interactions between chemical reactions and turbulence are all carefully considered by using some advanced numerical submodels. The predicted flow field and product conversion are compared with the experimental data.