NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF FLUID HYDRODYNAMICS IN V-SHAPE MICRO-CHANNEL FOR AMMONIA PRODUCTION USING MICRO-REACTOR

Micro-reactor and other micro-devices have received attention from the
society nowadays. This field is unique and has its own advantages which are worth to
be studied further. This project entitled 'Numerical Simulation of Fluid
Hydrodynamics in V-Shape Micro-channel for Ammonia Production using Microreactor'
has 3 objectives which are to develop a model for ammonia production in
micro-reactor, to identity the optimal catalyst location and to study the effect of
micro-channel diameter and inlet volumetric flow-rate toward the degree of mixing
of the reactants.
Currently the production of ammonia widely is by using Haber-Bosh process.
This Haber-Bosh process is proven in large-scale industrial process. However it uses
high temperatures (e.g., at 748 K) and pressures (e.g., at 20 MPa), and has not been
proven technically or economically effective below the ton per hour range (J.N.
Sahu, 2010). The study will be focusing on replacing the bulk reactor in the HaberBosh
process with micro-reactor.
The scope of study is focusing on hydrodynamics of fluid where the reaction
to produce ammonia was not taken into consideration. The effect of micro-channel
diameter and inlet volumetric flow-rate toward the ammonia production is assessed
by using computational fluid dynamic (CFD) approach. ANSYS 14, CFD is the
software for the simulation. Later the result from the simulation will be assessed in
order to proceed to the next phase, manufacturing the micro-reactor under 'One Baja'
project.