Open loop thermal control of exothermal chemical reactions in multifunctional heat exchangers

Authors

S. Ferrouillat
P. Tochon
D. Della Valle
H. Peerhossaini

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2006

Journal

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HEAT AND MASS TRANSFER

Volume

49

Issue

15-16

First Page

2479

URL with Digital Object Identifier

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2006.01.023

Last Page

2490

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental study which demonstrates the potentiality of multifunctional heat exchangers (MHE) to carry out exothermal chemical reactions by the local control of the reactive environment temperature. Two highly exothermal chemical reactions with different kinetics (instantaneous and fast) have been investigated. The MHE is found to be very efficient in extracting the heat released by the chemical reactions. Due to its large heat transfer capacity, this process allows to increase considerably inlet reactant concentrations without thermal runaway and thus to enhance both chemical reaction conversion ratio and yield. This study also shows the limitations of the multifunctional heat exchanger for exothermal and instantaneous chemical reactions. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.