Reducing environmental problems and increasing saving energy by proposing new configuration for moving bed thermally coupled reactors

In recent years, more stringent environmental regulations as well as higher needs to enhancement of thermal efficiency of process being imposed on the chemical processes for development of new procedures to supply requirements of industries. Nowadays, natural gas is an attractive contributor to the world's energy needs, but unfortunately the presence of sulfur components in natural gas contributes to the environmental side-effects. In order to remove sulfur components, a portion of the inlet hydrogen sulfide (H2S) oxidizes to the sulfur dioxide (SO2), while sulfur dioxide has destructive effects on the human health and on the environment. In this study, according to main aims of process integration and environmental regulations, a new configuration for oxidation of sulfur dioxide as an exothermic reaction in the thermally coupled reactor has been investigated. In order to utilizing the generated heat in oxidization reaction, this reaction has been coupled with naphtha reforming process as an endothermic one. The mathematical modeling of process is accomplished in two dimensions (radial and axial). Then, the modeling results of thermally coupled reactor (TCR) are compared with the obtained results of conventional one. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.