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Tubular Flow Reactors

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Book cover Cleaner Combustion

Part of the book series: Green Energy and Technology ((GREEN))

Abstract

Tubular flow reactors for studying combustion chemistry are extensively used due to their operational flexibility. In these reactors, conditions of temperature, pressure, and gas fluid residence time can be carefully controlled. The different real reactors (turbulent and laminar regimes, with and without temperature profiles) can attain almost ideal behavior (plug flow), diminishing the mathematical difficulties in the simulation of such environments. Nevertheless, the advantages and disadvantages, as well as the deviations of real reactors from ideality, must be considered in order to choose the most suitable reaction system in each case. Tubular flow reactors are proposed as one of the possible facilities to investigate the oxidation of oxygenated compounds, which have been suggested as additives to diesel fuel in order to reduce the formation of soot. Among oxygenates, this chapter focuses on the study of some alcohols (methanol, ethanol, propanol, and butanol) and ethers (dimethylether and dimethoxymethane), aiming to show the results that can be obtained by using a tubular flow reactor.

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Abbreviations

A :

Reactant

C :

Concentration

d t :

Tube diameter

D :

Dispersion coefficient

\(\cal{D}\) :

Diffusion coefficient

E(t):

Residence time distribution

F :

Molar flow rate

k :

Reaction rate constant

L :

Length of the reactor

p :

Pressure

Q :

Volumetric flow rate

r :

Radius

(−r A):

Rate of reaction

R :

Radius

t :

Time

T :

Temperature

u :

Velocity of fluid

V :

Volume

X A :

Fraction of A converted

μ:

Viscosity of fluid

ρ:

Density of fluid

Bo :

Bodenstein number

Re :

Reynolds number

Sc :

Schmidt number

DME:

Dimethylether

DMM:

Dimethoxymethane

PFR:

Plug flow reactor

RTD:

Residence time distribution

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Aragón Institute of Engineering Research (I3A), University of Zaragoza, Río Ebro Campus, C/Mariano Esquillor s/n, 50018, Zaragoza, Spain

    Fabiola Monge, Veronica Aranda, Angela Millera, Rafael Bilbao & María U. Alzueta

Authors
  1. Fabiola Monge
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  2. Veronica Aranda
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  3. Angela Millera
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  4. Rafael Bilbao
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  5. María U. Alzueta
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to María U. Alzueta .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire Reactions et Genie des Proce, ENSIC, Nancy Cedex, France

    Frédérique Battin-Leclerc

  2. Combustion Chemistry Centre, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland

    John M. Simmie

  3. Department of Energy Sciences, Division, University of Lund, Lund, Sweden

    Edward Blurock

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Monge, F., Aranda, V., Millera, A., Bilbao, R., Alzueta, M.U. (2013). Tubular Flow Reactors. In: Battin-Leclerc, F., Simmie, J., Blurock, E. (eds) Cleaner Combustion. Green Energy and Technology. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-5307-8_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-5307-8_9

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