Emergence of traveling wave endothermic reaction in a catalytic fixed bed under microwave heating

This paper presents a new phenomenon in a packed bed catalytic reactor under microwave heating - traveling wave (moving reaction zones) endothermic chemical reaction. A two-phase model is developed to simulate the nonlinear dynamic behavior of the packed bed catalytic reactor with an irreversible first-order chemical reaction. The absorbed microwave power was obtained from Lambert's law. The structure of traveling wave endothermic chemical reaction was explored. The effects of the gas velocity and microwave power on performance of the packed bed catalytic reactor were presented. Finally, the effects of the change in the location of the microwave source at the packed bed reactor was demonstrated. •A new phenomenon - traveling waves of endothermic reaction - is predicted.•The physical and mathematical model of a packed bed catalytic reactor under microwave heating is presented.•The structure of the traveling waves is explored.•The configuration of heating the packed bed reactor via microwave plays a key role.