Jasper: Numerical modelling of the SIENNA reactor at TNO

The SIENNA reactor at TNO is designed for methanol synthesis from CO₂ and H₂, and aims to boost the process beyond equilibrium by in-situ separation of H₂O, making use of Le Chatelier’s principle. In this internship project, a two-dimensional numerical model for the reactor is developed, tested, and used to gain insights on the SIENNA membrane reactor and the interplay between mass transfer and heat conduction processes. Comparison tests to the prototype reactor at TNO were performed, and yielded satisfactory results, allowing the use of the model in the design of a next-gen SIENNA. Simple scale changes such as width, length and flowrate, while keeping the same reactor structure did not yield satisfactory improvements, so alternative reactor designs have been suggested. These designs include heated membranes, mixing elements and concatenation of multiple short SIENNA-type reactor modules. To properly study these more advanced designs, a CFD approach is recommended, considering the limitations experienced by mathematical modelling.

This project was a collaboration with TNO and Atsushi Urakawa.