Enhancement of aromatic production in naphtha reforming process using a novel thermally coupled reactor

This study aims to propose and investigate a novel thermally coupled reactor of the recuperative type which contains the naphtha reforming process in the endothermic side and the hydrogenation reaction of nitrobenzene to aniline in the exothermic side. Considering the higher thermal efficiency, utilizing the recuperative coupled reactor is given priority. In this novel configuration, the conventional naphtha reforming process has been substituted by the recuperative thermally coupled reactor which contains the naphtha reforming reactions in the shell side, and the hydrogenation reaction in the tube side. The achieved results of the presented simulation have been compared to the results of the conventional fixed-bed naphtha reforming reactors. Based on the simulation results, an acceptable enhancement has been achieved in the performance of the reactor. It should be also mentioned that the proposed thermally coupled reactor resulted in 16.2% increase in the production rate of the aromatic compared to the conventional reactor.

کلیدواژه ها:

Naphtha reforming ، Aromatic production ، Recuperative coupling ، Nitrobenzene hydrogenation