High Thermal Conductivity Structured Carriers for Catalytic Processes Intensification

Process intensification is conceived as a way to optimize fixed and operating costs in an industrial plant. It is not only related to a reduction of the size of equipments, but also to the change of the production method, by enhancing both chemical that physical aspects of the process. In particular, when there has to deal with exothermic equilibrium reactions, such as the Water Gas Shift, the main problem is that the conversion is limited by the kinetics at the inlet of a catalyst bed, because temperature is low, and is thermodynamically limited at the outlet, because in the adiabatic reactor temperature raises, lowering the equilibrium value. A good solution would be the use of a high conductive carrier, able to redistribute the heat of reaction along the catalyst bed. The aim of this work was to study the heat transfer phenomenon on structured carriers such as open cell foams, by estimating also the thermal properties by a mathematical model elaborated for the heat transfer system.