Packed Bed Reactors for Academic Experimentation

Figure 1. A picture of Team Dementors next to the built setup. From left to right: Emilio, Ahmad, Thien, and Clive.

Introduction

Project Name: Packed Bed Reactors for Academic Experimentation

Authors: Ahmad El Gazzar, Thien Hung Nguyen, Clive Onyango, Emilio Vega-Ramos.

Project Sponsor: Professor Marc Porosoff.

Professor Marc Porosoff, the Project Sponsor, is an Assistant Professor in the Chemical Engineering Department at the University of Rochester.

Campus Mentors: Professor F. Doug Kelley, Jeffery Lefler, and Clair Cunningham.

Customers: ChE 246 Principal Investigator and ChE Undergraduate Students.

Project Motivation

Figure 2. Currently available reactor systems. Continuously-stirred tank reactors (left) and tubular reactors (right).

Currently, undergraduate Chemical Engineering students have access to homogeneous reactor systems shown in Figure 2. There is a need to incorporate packed-bed systems with gaseous phase reactants for a more enriched laboratory experience. A system containing four stainless steel reactors has been proposed to allow for the exploration of effects of pressure, temperature, catalyst weight, and flow rates on the performance metrics of the reverse-water gas shift reaction (RWGS) shown in Equation 1.

CO₂ + H₂ ⇌ CO + H₂O (Equation 1)

Table 1. Website directory.

Page	Content
1	Introduction
2	Project Background
3	Technical Approach
4	Results
5	Conclusions and Future Work