USE OF A 2ND ENDOTHERMIC REACTION TO DESENSITIZE A TUBULAR REACTOR

Three parametric sensitivity criteria were examined for application to a pseudohomogeneous tubular reactor system, in which both methanol dehydration (exothermic) and methanol dissociation (endothermic) were catalyzed. The addition of the endothermic reaction was shown to lead to a desensitized reactor. It was illustrated, however, that the relative activities of the two catalysts should be somewhat similar to maintain the overall conversion of the resulting reactor for a given residence time. The three criteria investigated tended to disagree with one another more, as the system was made less sensitive by the addition of more endothermic catalyst. A potential application of the resulting nonsensitive reactor design would be in methanol-fueled vehicles.