Simulation of Propane Pyrolysis in a Flow-Through Chemical Reactor under Constant External Heating

This study carries out the numerical simulation of the propane pyrolysis process in a flow-through chemical reactor where chemical conversions are induced by the external heating of the reaction zone. Navier–Stokes equations in the approximation of small Mach numbers are used for the mathematical description of the studied processes, since the velocity of the gas mixture is much lower than the speed of sound in this mixture. The difference scheme is constructed by the integro-interpolation method. The equations of chemical kinetics are solved by a specialized explicit scheme of the second order of accuracy with low computational complexity. As a base for describing the chemical conversions of propane pyrolysis, a well-known kinetic scheme, which includes 30 elementary stages, is employed. However, for a more accurate description of the process, the activation energy of one of the reaction stages is adjusted. The propane pyrolysis process is numerically simulated, taking into account the processes of viscosity, diffusion, and thermal conductivity for various temperatures of the heating elements. Our results on the conversion of propane are compared with the experimental data and well-known numerical results of solving this problem. It is concluded that the developed numerical algorithm confirms the reliability of the results and can be applied in practice to simulate the investigated processes.