Non-kinetic phenomena in thermal analysis data; computational fluid dynamics reactor studies

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has been used to develop a characterisation method for the transport phenomena occurring within thermal analysis reactors. This method allows the comparison of different equipment configurations to identify which are most suitable for obtaining intrinsic data. In this work, four equipment configurations are compared from two broad categories; pan-style and tubular reactors. In general, it was concluded that there are both heat and mass transport issues within pan-style and non-uniform diameter tubular reactor configurations and that these should be avoided if extraction of kinetic parameters is the goal. Uniform diameter tubular reactors are suitable for kinetic experimentation, but checks should be made using the dimensionless analysis discussed in this work.