Mass transfer resistance of CuCl₂ hydrolysis in a fixed bed reactor

Kankanamalage, Dilum Madushanka Perera (2023) Mass transfer resistance of CuCl₂ hydrolysis in a fixed bed reactor. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

The hydrolysis reaction of the Copper-Chlorine (Cu-Cl) cycle is examined in this research to investigate corresponding reaction kinetics with respect to mass transfer resistance through an experimental approach. The experiment was operated at a temperature of 390 °C at atmospheric pressure. The reaction is heterogeneous in which solid reactant CuCl₂ and gaseous reactant H₂O produce Cu₂OCl₂ and HCl. The heterogeneous behaviour of the reaction causes resistance to mass transfer of gaseous reactant H₂O. The resistance in internal diffusion and a surface reaction with mass transfer were analyzed with respect to the initial solid reactant particle size using a shrinking core model (SCM). The results present the thermophysical property of the reaction rate coefficient 0.201 65 s⁻¹ for a particle size of 620 μm and sphericity of 0.68. The experimentally determined reaction and conversion rates of hydrolysis with respect to time are presented, which are experimentally calculated parameters. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis were used for more accurate results. An uncertainty analysis for the sensors and transducers of the experiment shows that the experimental results have an uncertainty of ±30.1%.

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