(587w) Modeling of a Fiber Packed-Reactor Under Laminar Regime for the Production of Chemicals, Including Biodiesel and Nanoparticles

The need to have reactors in order to obtain biofuel more efficiently and economically is (curently) an important engineering and innovation aspect. In particular, for biodiesel, the need of a design that increases yield and minimize production time is of a high priority. One of these possible designs is based on tubular reactors packed with polymer fibers (REF). These packed-bed fiber reactors take advantage of the unique features of the fibers that provide an enormous area of contact for two phases without the need of mixing (Massingil et al, 2008). This research approach focuses on understanding the different physical elements or components, transport processes, and kinetics that play a role in the production of biodiesel in these novel fiber packed-bed reactors. Therefore, a collection of models (of increasing complexity) are being proposed and studied in order to predict the process yield and reactor behavior. The strategy is to first develop a relatively simple transport model (under laminar regime) with the associated kinetics to study the convective-diffusion process taking place inside the novel fiber-packed reactors.  As a first step, a continuum-based approach with proper assumptions will help produce a "single-phase" model in order to predict the conversion. In this regard, limiting regimes will be studied in order to gain understanding of the (more complex) system behavior. Both analytical and computational-based approaches will be used to illustrate the model’s predictions and a detailed analysis of the results will be presented. Future potential model efforts will also be addressed.