Two Dimensional (2D) Multi-Scale Modeling of Fixed Bed Adsorption Column Using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Simulation

Abstract

Natural gas has received much attention with low environmental impact in recent decades as a fuel source. Flexible natural gas purification systems with minimal carbon dioxide footprints are growing in need. There are few techniques that base current industrial decontamination systems on among which adsorption is considered to be the promising one. Herein multi-scale models have advanced to simulate the hydrodynamics and adsorption-dynamics of gases in the adsorption column, a mixture of (CO₂ and CH₄) In the current analysis, a two-dimensional (2D) porous media was modelled using CFD multi-scale model. A fixed-bed adsorption column was used for the removal of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from methane (CH₄) and the silicate adsorbent adsorption kinetics linear driving force (LDF) model was simulated to describe it. The adsorption phenomena simulation inside the fixed bed using CFD method was implemented and using user defined function (UDF) and the user defined scalar (UDS), porous media concept and the mass transfer coefficient for gas components (CO₂/CH₄) were developed. The experimental data was used to validate the model which was collected based on varying a number of laboratory conditions. The simulation results prediction of methane recovery and breakthrough curves shows an acceptable agreement with the experimental data with the highest error lower than 3.5%. Moreover, the effect of feed concentration (15,35 and 75%), feed velocity effect (0.03,0.05 and 0.07 m/s), effect of bed porosity (0.42, 0.52 and 0.62), effect of inlet concentration on temperature (15, 30 and 60%), particle radius (0.0006, 0.0007 and 0.0008m) and effect of bed height (0.3, 0.4 and 0.5m) were investigated. The present results received from the CFD approach suggests that they are capable to predict the adsorption phenomena and hydrodynamics in the adsorption column.

Received: 7 March 2024 | Revised: 10 April 2024 | Accepted: 15 April 2024

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to this work.

Data Availability Statement

Data available on request from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.