An analysis of the stabilization mechanism of reverse flow reactors with application in catalytic VOC combustion

The aim of the work is a thorough theoretical analysis regarding the time evolutions of state variables during the stabilization of temperature and composition profiles, for a fixed catalytic bed reactor, operated in forced unsteady state regime by periodically changing the flow direction. The decontamination of lean waste gases by VOC combustion over a commercial Pt/alumina catalyst with non-uniform distribution of Pt is considered as a case study. The process is mathematically described by a heterogeneous one dimensional model. The simulation results evidence that the stabilized (pseudo steady) state regime is achieved when the amount of heat generated during a cycle equals the amount of heat withdrawn from the bed by gaseous mixture. Keywords: packed bed, reverse flow, unsteady-state, process simulation, sensitivity analysis