Simulation of Membrane Water Gas Shift Reactors by a Two-dimensional Model

Water gas shift (WGS) is a thermodynamically limited reaction which has to operate at low temperatures, reducing kinetics rate and increasing the amount of catalyst required to reach valuable CO conversions. It has been widely demonstrated that the integration of hydrogen selective membranes is a promising way to enhance WGS reactors performance: a Pd-based membrane reactor (MR) operated successfully overcoming the thermodynamic constraints of a traditional reactor thanks to the removal of hydrogen from reaction environment. In this work, the effect of hydrogen removal in membrane water gas shift reactors has been investigated by a two-dimensional, non-isothermal model in order to analyze the WGS reactor performance.