Modeling and Simulation of Hollow Fiber Biocatalyst Membrane Reactor

Hollow fiber biocatalytic membrane reactors (HFBMR) combine selective mass transport with chemical reactions in a tubular geometry. The selective removal of products from the reaction site increases the thermodynamically unfavorable reactions. In this work, a mathematical model of HFBMR, operating under steady state and isothermally, has been developed. The model comprises of a set of two nonlinear ODEs; where one of the ODEs is a second-order BVP in radial direction (depicting diffusion-reaction in radial direction in spongy region) while the other ODE is a first-order IVP in axial direction (depicting a classical PFR performance equation at steady state). A Mathematica based program has been developed to numerically simulate HFBMR for various reaction kinetics and a comparison of the obtained results has been made with those obtained by using an available approximate expression for effectiveness factor. Using this program, effectiveness factor at various locations in the reactor has been successfully evaluated and validated with the available literature results. This study is quite useful for the future use of biocatalyst reactors for arbitrary reaction kinetics at an industrial level.