Comparison of Structured Reactors for Ozone Abatement in Aircrafts at Low Temperature

• Published in: Industrial & engineering chemistry research Vol. 60; no. 46; pp. 16739 - 16746
• Main Authors: Swesi, Yousef, Gillet, Amaury, Guérin, Alexandre, Zanota, Marie-Line, Bornette, Frédéric, Philippe, Régis, Meille, Valérie
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Chemical Society 24.11.2021
• Subjects: Catalysis; Chemical Sciences; Environment and Society; Environmental Sciences; Kinetics, Catalysis, and Reaction Engineering
• ISSN: 0888-5885; 1520-5045
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.iecr.1c02901

Ozone abatement in aircraft is traditionally performed thanks to catalytic ozone converters, working at ca. 200 °C with combined homogeneous (thermal) and heterogeneous (catalytic) pathways. For energy integration issues, in the future, more electrical aircraft will not be allowed to perform ozone conversion at such a high temperature. Better performances are thus expected for the next generation of ozone converters, which will be mainly working in a catalytic heterogeneous manner. As the heterogeneous catalytic reaction is mass transfer limited, the structuration itself is a critical parameter. Indeed, it is necessary to look for a high surface-to-volume ratio but also mandatory to limit the induced pressure drop for energy saving on-board. Different geometries were evaluated in this work (ceramic and metallic monoliths and foams), with a homemade coating of commercial Pd/alumina powder catalyst in realistic flow conditions (gas flow velocities, ozone concentration level, contact times). Thanks to the evaluation of volumetric mass transfer coefficients and pressure drop measurements, the best compromise was determined to be a metallic monolith with 400 CPSI. New correlations were proposed to better fit the experimental data.