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Report Catalogue Data

  Report Class   General Public Report
  Analysis Type   Situation Analysis
  Issue Category   Technology Analysis
  Release Date   09_26_2008
  Last Update  
  Reference Code   GPR-SA.TA.ET-20080926-MBR
Environmental Technologies
Moving-Bed Carbon Recapture Bosch Reactor


The efficacious GHG effects remediation as proffered entails the development and adoption of a remediation technology embodying a reactor based on the Bosch Reaction of elemental carbon stripping from carbon dioxide. The chemical process essentially reacts carbon dioxide with hydrogen to yield elemental carbon, water and portion of the energy consumed to drive the reaction. Effectively, the remediation technology reverts the carbon dioxide formation process - as per the burning of fossil fuels - by absorbing the gas from the atmosphere, stripping  from it the carbon donated by the fossil fuel and returning the otherwise bounded and unavailable oxygen back to the atmosphere.

The provisioning of oxygen to the environment and thereby making the atmosphere more healthful is one of the remarkable features of such remediation technology. Hence, whenever human endeavor has the task of net-positive GHG emission, such a technology - nothing else then the deployment of the reactor - is advised for reasons of Environmental Protection. A basic design of the reactor for immediate adoption as well as for continued research and development therefore is rational and necessary.

 The factors for consideration in evolving the reactor design specifications are essentially abstracted from the known reaction behaviour. First, the reaction is a nested consecutive two reactions:

CO2 + H2 -> CO + H2O                        (1)

CO + H2 -> C + H2O                           (2)

The first reaction known as water shit-gas reaction is very fast while the second one is slow and is the controlling reaction. Further the second reaction in which the elemental carbon is extracted from the carbon monoxide causes the fouling of the catalysts surface in forming solid-solid solution by the metallurgical reaction in which the carbon atoms dissolve in the metal catalyst.

For the purposes of reactor design then the issues are that the reaction mixture consists of catalyst pellets, water vapor, and carbon which must be separated at the end of the reaction time or reactor residence time. The reactor must support the continuous removal and replenishing of the catalyst pellets during operation. The operating temperature must be tightly controlled to prevent any methane reaction; in addition the catalyst selected for use must not support any form of methane reaction, except if reacting methane and carbon dioxide.


The Type and Design of Reactor
On the basis of these considerations only Moving Bed and Entrained Bed Reactors - amongst the various types of chemical reactors -  are suitable given the need to continually replace the fouled catalysts with new or regenerated catalysts. Of the two types of reactors, the Moving Bed reactor also is chosen as having advantage over the Entrained  Reactor because the former affords first tier separation of the reaction mixture by separating the catalysts from the water-vapour and carbon plume.

The basic configuration of the reaction system then will consist of the reactor proper, the Catalysts Feed Design, Catalysts Extraction Receptacle and a [Carbon-]Dust Steam Separator. The moving bed reactor design may consist of a cylindrical vessel. The body-cylinder is capped at both ends with spherical caps with flanges that are fastened to flanges on the cylinder. At the top cap is attached both the Catalyst Feed Device, and connected the [carbon-] Dust-Steam Separator. In the dome interior of the top cap is affixed the Catalysts Feed Distributor that dispenses the catalysts pellets into the reactor in fairly uniform distribution across the flow-path cross-section. At the bottom cap is attached the Catalysts Extraction Receptacle.

Operationally, the catalysts are introduced into the reactor at the top of the reactor and falls through the reactor. The reaction feed, gaseous mixture of Hydrogen and carbon dioxide,  is introduced from the bottom of the reactor and flows upwards - countercurrent to the falling catalysts pellets. The reactants react on the catalysts and the product mix of steam and carbon dust convects upwards with the entrainment of the carbon dust by the steam. The steam carbon-dust effluent-stream is then fed into the carbon-dust steam separator where the carbon dust is separated from the steam. The catalysts pellets on falling to the bottom end of the reactor is extracted from the reactor by the catalysts extraction design.

The dimensioning of the reactor should aim to define the reaction zone proper and aim to position the zone within the length of the reactor vessel. This zone is bounded by the point at which the reactants are fully consume at the top and by the point at the bottom at which the catalysts fouling has completely deactivated the catalyst and hence stooped the reaction. The positioning of the zone should be such that reaction inception point along the gas flow-path, which is also the lower bound of the reaction zone is kept as close as possible about at the bottom of the reactor, while the upper-bound of the reaction zone - the point of reaction completion - should be kept as close as possible at about the top of the


zone - the point of reaction completion - should be kept as close as possible at about the top of the vessel just below the Catalysts Feed Distributor. Excess capacity - extra length above the upper-bound of the reaction zone - need not be provided as the solid-solid solution metallurgical reaction always occurs and continues the fouling of fresh feed catalyst pellets.

Potential Environmental Protection Adoptions
The recycling of edible domestic waste into biofuel is another area where of environmental pollution control where the use of the reactor may also be handy. In the task of recycling domestic waste the products are biogas and biofuel. The biogas more specifically consists of hydrogen, carbon dioxide and methane. The production of methane however is slight as a result of the design of the bioreactor  suggested for adoption to effect the edible waste-recycle. The major constituents of the biogas then are the hydrogen and carbon dioxide, which also are the reactants needed for a Bosch reaction to prevent the carbon dioxide from being discharged into the atmosphere. Adoption of the Elemental Carbon Extraction process embodying this reactor therefore should suffice in preventing GHG emission.

 

 


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