|
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.
|