Packed-bed and Microchannel Reactors for the Reactive Capture of CO2 within Power-to-Methane (P2M) Context: A Comparison

Abstract

Carbon capture and utilization technologies have recently boomed as strategies to decrease carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, in which methanation (via-Sabatier process) seems to be a prominent pathway. However, CO2 methanation involves technical challenges to be overcome, such as heat removal and high intermittency during the operation. This study assesses the operation of a packed-bed and a microreactor in the Synthetic Natural Gas (SNG) production through computational fluid dynamics modeling. The data compilation from simulations and further analysis provides valuable information about hot spots formation and CO2 conversion under established dimensional specifications and cooling conditions. From the above configurations, microreactor configuration was the best option to control the hot spot formation without leaving aside the SNG production. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.