Oxidation of n-butane to maleic anhydride in a milli-structured fixed bed reactor

In this project, the concept of the micro- or milli-structured fixed-bed reactor for strongly exothermic gas-phase reactions is investigated using the industrially relevant partial oxidation of n-butane to maleic anhydride as an example. In the experimental part, systematic reaction engineering measurements on reaction channels and catalyst particles of different dimensions are carried out at the Institute of Chemical Process Engineering (ICVT) to determine the degree of conversion, selectivity and pressure loss. In the theoretical part, scale-resolving calculations of diffusion, convection and reactions in porous media are carried out in the Department of Fluid Mechanics at the ITM using the lattice-Boltzmann method with the aim of deriving generalizable laws for these transport processes depending on the pore structure. The figure shows the flow through a reaction channel of the reactor.

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