Semi-analytical solutions for one- and two-dimensional pellet problems

Abstract

The problem of heat and mass transfer within a porous catalytic pellet in which an irreversible first-order exothermic reaction occurs is a much-studied problem in chemical-reactor engineering. The system is described by two coupled reaction-diffusion equations for the temperature and the degree of reactant conversion. The Galerkin method is used to obtain a semi-analytical model for the pellet problem with both one- and two-dimensional slab geometries. This involves approximating the spatial structure of the temperature and reactant-conversion profiles in the pellet using trial functions. The semi-analytical model is obtained by averaging the governing partial differential equations. As the..