Isothermal Continuous Stirred Adsorption Tower (CSAT) for Vanadium Catalyst Based Sulphur Trioxide Hydration Process

Catalytic hydration of sulphur trioxide results to production of sulphuric acid and it is industrially very important chemical specie due to the associated uses. Hence the continuous search for the development of suitable design model to optimize its production capacity for reactor types is eminent. Therefore presented in this paper is development of design models for performance evaluation of continuous stirred adsorption tower (CSAT) for sulphur trioxide hydration process using vanadium catalyst at isothermal condition. The design models were stochastically appraised and found to be capable of simulating performance dimensions as a function of kinetic parameters. . These performance dimensions include tower volume, height, space time, space velocity, and rate of heat generation per unit volume. The developed performance models were generalized to accommodate any CSAT plant capacity design basis as a function of fractional conversion. The proposed performance dimensions design models could also be used to develop the heat exchanger functional parameters aimed at achieving the isothermal condition of the hydration process. The model equations were further simulated to evaluate the stipulated performance dimensions using Matlab R2007B within the operational limits of conversion degree at constant temperature. The results of the performance dimensions showed a dependable relationship with fractional conversion.